Here's a fun investing theory: do the opposite of whatever Jim Cramer says on TV. It turns out, that's not just a meme—it's a strategy that's been beating the market.
To a certain segment of retail traders, the former hedge fund manager and CNBC host is the inspiration for the "Inverse Cramer" theory. And now, there's a platform that lets you put real money behind it. Autopilot, launched in 2023, allows users to automatically invest in portfolios that track this contrarian idea. According to co-founder Chris Josephs, the startup has exploded from $2 million to $1.3 billion in assets. He told MarketDash that roughly 40% of those assets are in what he calls "meme portfolios."
And the Inverse Cramer portfolio is one of the most popular. Investors can connect Autopilot to their brokerage and let the algorithm do the work of betting against Cramer's public stock recommendations.
So, why does this seem to work? Josephs has a theory. "I think he represents sort of like the classic buy high, sell low kind of mantra," he said. "If a stock is rallying, no one on TV is going to talk about it the first day. No one on TV is going to probably talk about the second day or third day. They eventually are going to talk about it too late, but they're going to do it because they can't ignore it."
He points to Micron Technology (MU) as a recent example. The stock had been on a massive run, up over 160%, before seeing a slight dip in 2025. According to Josephs, that's when Cramer decided it was finally time to talk about Micron. "Now it's like no one should buy it anymore because the memory stock trade is done with you," Josephs said, summarizing the perceived timing.
In Josephs's view, Cramer exemplifies a TV personality who only wants to "talk about stocks when they're popular." "By the time they talk about them, they're all too late," he added. The Autopilot co-founder argues this creates a predictable inverse effect. When financial media personalities are finally discussing stocks that have seen huge recent moves, it might signal that the story is about to flip. "Now is the time to actually start paying attention to it in the inverse way," Josephs said.
Inverse Cramer Portfolio: A Top Performer
The results, at least so far, are hard to ignore. The Inverse Cramer portfolio launched on Autopilot in 2023 and now has $56 million in assets tracking the strategy.
"He's one of the top-performing portfolios. He outperforms Nancy Pelosi with that strategy," Josephs said, comparing the TV host's inverse track record to the often-followed stock moves of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The numbers are stark. "Since then it's up 158% while the SPY is up 68% in that same time period," Josephs said, comparing the Inverse Cramer portfolio to the S&P 500-tracking SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY).
Over a two-year period, the Inverse Cramer strategy gained 90.6%, beating the 62.5% gain of the Nancy Pelosi portfolio over the same stretch. That performance puts it in third place overall on the Autopilot platform for the last two years.
The narrative shift was noted on social media. The Pelosi Tracker account on X (formerly Twitter) highlighted that in 2025, the congresswoman's stock picks were up 25%, while the Inverse Cramer picks were up 60% for the year. "The Queen has been dethroned. Inverse Cramer officially beats out Pelosi for the top portfolio on Autopilot," the account tweeted.
It's a strange world where betting against a famous stock-picker becomes a viable, and even leading, investment strategy. But for now, the data suggests that for a certain segment of the market, the best trade might be to simply do the opposite of what you hear on TV.
