Jim Cramer

There's a sizeable north American viewing public which knows about Jim Cramer: most other mining investment "watchers" don't. Yet his “Mad Money” talk show on CNBC is followed by a significant number of those who wnat his advice - as he discusses stock market trends at the same time as talking up his own investments, made through a charitable foundation (sic) called Action Alerts Plus.

Cramer is a lawyer-cum-journalist who set up his own hedge fund, Cramer & Co. (later Cramer, Berkowitz, & Co.), in 1987. Among its early investors was none other than Eliot Spitzer, one of his oldest friends, who helped bring down the infamous Enron Corporation in 2001 when he (Spitzer) was New York Attorney General.

However,Cramer’s eponymous hedge fund bombed in 1988 and Jim pulled out of it.

In 1996, Cramer also co-founded TheStreet.com ,Inc. , along with /The New Republic / editor Martin Peretz , an early client of his hedge fund, and he remains a key commentator for this, one of the leading market advisory services in the US.

Cramer is unusually frank in public about what he’s putting his money on at any one time. Among his preferred mining'metals “plays” at the beginbing of 2011 are: Alcoa; Vale; Nucor (a major US steel and steel products company) and Caterpillar Inc (the world’s biggest provider of heavy equipment to the mining industry).

But Cramer’s recent biggest bet has been on the long term fortunes of Canada’s Novagold - (which he called in January 2011 the "best long-term play on gold" - a company which one financial commentator reckons could be worth US£20 billion at present prices ["Why a Takeout of Novagold Could Exceed $23/Share" by Thomas Kelly, Seeking Alpha21 January 2011].

Just before Xmas 2010, Novagold also bid to take a majority share in a mine project which threatens the territory of the Tahltan First Nation in British Colombia [ http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=2569 ].

See also: Paulson & Co; Soros Fund Management