January 19. 2012:  The January 2012 issue of Mark Hulbert's "Long Term Performance Ratings" shows the performance for over 500 newsletter portfolios.  He updates this report twice a year.  I show a snapshot of it here.

On page 16, Hulbert shows "Jim Cramer's Actions Alerts PLUS" portfolio lost 9.5% last year (2011.)  The Standard and Poor's 500 with dividends reinvested gained 2.1% while the Wilshire 5000 (Total Market) index gained 1.0% with dividends reinvested.

On the same page, Hulbert "Jim Cramer's Actions Alerts PLUS" portfolio has ONLY gained 9.9% per year since 12/31/08 while the Wilshire 5000 (Total Market) index gained 14.9% over the same period with dividends reinvested.  This means over the last 3 years, Cramer's stock portfolio underperformed the simple Wilshire 5000 exchange traded fund (ETF) from Vanguard (VTI) by 5% per year!

With performance like this, it is no wonder Jim Cramer makes a lot of noise on TV but doesn't show his returns by year anywhere on his many websites that I can find.  If you can find it listed, then let me know and I'll post a retraction.

Portfolio Performance (note 1)
Year	Jim Cramer's Action Alerts Plus	Wilshire  5000 Index	Kirk's Explore More Data
2011	-9.5%	+1.0%	-3.9%
2010	+14.2%	+17.2%	+20.4%
2009	+28.5%	+28.3%	+33.5%
Total Return	32.8%	51.9%	54.5%
3- Yr Annualized Return	9.9%	14.9%	15.6%

===>>> As of 1/19/12, Kirk's Explore portfolio is up 7.0% YTD!  Subscribe Now!