Edible Apple

I realize this is ancient news in Internet years, but I haven’t yet had a chance to touch on Jon Stewart’s complete destruction of Jim Cramer on last week’s The Daily Show. Stewart brilliantly took Cramer to task over the way that he, and his CNBC cohorts, have relayed financial information to viewers over the past few months.

Anyone whose followed Apple over the past few years is well aware of the seemingly overt manipulation of Apple stock through the spreading of false and completely baseless rumors, whether it be about the health of Steve Jobs or the ship date of a product.

One revealing video clip making the rounds lately, and partially showcased by Stewart, shows Cramer openly admitting to tactics he used as a hedge fund manager to blatantly manipulate stock prices. As an example, he brings up Apple, and how easy it would be to manipulate the stock downwards.

Below is a partial transcript of that interview, which was conducted in the month leading up to the iPhone announcement:

Apple’s very important to spread the rumor that both Verizon and AT&T have decided they don’t like the phone. It’s a very easy one to do, and you also want to spread the rumor that it’s not gonna be ready for Macworld. And this is very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that its credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple doesn’t issue statements. So it’s really an ideal short, and again, if I were short Apple, I would be working very hard today to get that, and the way you do that is you pick up the phone, you call 6 trading desks, and you say “listen, i just got off the phone with my contact at Verizon and he said “listen, we’re a LG house, we’re a Samsung and Motorola house. There’s no room for Apple, they want too much. We’re not gonna let them in…” And I think that’s a very effective way to keep a stock down.

Again, for anyone whose followed Apple’s stock over the past few years, this news is hardly surprising. It’s jarring, however, to see it discussed so nonchalantly out in the open.

You can check out the full video of Cramers tutorial on “How to F with Stocks” below:

And check out Jon Stewart’s full interview with Cramer below: