like so many think they do. yes, money making over the long haul is the only -- if i become the only excuse for short-term losses or thinking. that will only make you a worse investor, allegedly long-term alibis that you can fix over the years. where do these sirens lead you astray? at what point do you need to cover your ears? that you won't listen to the conventional wisdom and spill your portfolio on to the shoals. long-term investment is not the same as owning stocks for the long-term. don't confuse good investor with buy and hold or as i skeptly dub it, buy and forget. by and hold has the conventional wisdom for decades and has lost more money for people than the last two crises combined.

just because you have a long-term horizon doesn't mean you can afford to take loss after loss. losses are losses. realized or otherwise and the notion of being in something for the long-term does not justify owning damaged goods, the stocks of companies in bad shape, got -- be anyone to buy holders that once you purchase your stocks, you just wait. me, i've never liked wait and it happens to be a terrible strategy if you think it is a strategy. that's what i'm saying you have to keep track of your investments, doing the homework i talk about on the show. going over the quarterly reports, reading the transcripts. much of the research that used to be available paying millions of commission can now be found on the web, it's your money. invest the time in it. i think that's a buy and hold act like you're investing for the long-term means you have a

license not to pay attention. worry. wrong. you always have to pay attention. you'll never be able to recover from those losses. sometimes, secular decline and their stocks never really recover. in that case, you can't wait for a turn around. you just have to get out before the damage becomes too horrific. just ask the people who wrote out research in motion or nokia or radio shack. in other words, being a long-term investor doesn't give you a license to be a lazy investor. that just doesn't work. investing for the long-term does not mean owning stocks forever. if there's one good thing the crash did it's disamuse the fact that you can buy and hold stocks returning. go ahead. and magically, they will make you money. back to 50 in no time.

as long as you don't pay too much attention or try too hard the gain short-term moves. from the stories i read, the lessons are already being forgotten. i can't have that happen. not on my watch here. i've been one of the loudest opponents of buy and hold. many of the crazy things, many of the people who foolishly espouse this philosophy have tried to change their tune or been so discredited that no one listens to them anymore. it doesn't mean stocks can't make you money anymore. that's what many of you think if you confuse buy and hold. the truth is that stocks are are still the best way to make money for your retirement, 529 plan or just to build up savings so you can afford big ticket items, like a house or car. especially stocks with consistently growing dividends. once in a while, compound your wealth by investing.

the dividend payers that i highlight, excuse me, if any in my books. that said, you will never get any of those things if you use the concept of a long-term horizon as an excuse or alibi for bad performance. and holding stocks that can't even afford to pay their debts. something you won't know about if you buy and forget. here's the bottom line. long-term investing has gotten mixed up with a lot of bad areas over the years. that doesn't mean it's impossible or not worth trying. i can on this show, teach you the disciplines and strategies that will allow you to build long-term wealth by investing in stocks. just as long as you remember that i'm a long-term investor end quotes, is no excuse for not doing the homework or following the rules i lay down. if anything, being in stocks for the long-term requires more diligence and patience, so don't

throw way wii all the lessons that i teach you. you're going to need them. to paraphrase that amateur investor, gertrude stein, a loss is a loss is loss and don't you ever forget it. bill in pennsylvania. bill. hey. >> speak up, bill, the floor is yours. >> hey, i thought i was a rock star. made a couple of great trades. made about seven points in a week on one stock. another couple of points on another. only to have the stock continue to run up another 10, 12, 14 points, wondering do you have any advice on how i can realize the full potential and become more of an investor than trader. >> you have to label your stocks. say, is this a core position? that means you can sell some, but you must own the rest. if it's a core position, i can

sell some on a ramp, but not all, period. anoint your stocks and then hold on to that core position. kim in california. kim. >> hi, jim. >> yo, what's shaking? >> i wanted to give you and your staff major props for recommending us airways. >> i got the smartest staff in the world. some swell people. sports fans, most of them. >> that stock's up over 10% for me. my question is, what's the difference between buying on a dip and buying on a pullback? and can you give us an idea the percentage that fits those? >> sure, that's a great question. i think three to five is a dip. a pullback is five to eight. little dip, intraday, down three, down five over a couple of days, but 5 to 8% is a classic bull market. you've got to give it wide.

if it's going to be a dip, stocks are 12, put in a bid to buy some at ten. 11 and change on the tip and then if it's going to be a real correction, sure, you've got to give it some room. okay? and if you get 10% down, that's fine. get 20% down, you've got to leave room. a correction can be that deep for some stocks. i don't know when long-term investing became a bad thing. it's the right thing if it's done with homework and discipline, but not just with some label that says i don't have to worry about it. you see, i label it long-term. we'll be right back. >> come don't miss a second of "mad money." have a question? tweet cramer. send jim an e-mail or give us a call.

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♪ let's talk the price is right. not the game show. the stock show. if you want to actually make money from your stock, which i know you do, then it's absolutely critical you buy them at the right price, not the wrong price. that's true whether you're making short-term trade or purchasing something you expect to hold for years and years. when you pay too much for a

stock at the beginning, you make it more difficult to rack up the kind of big gains we can't get enough here on "mad money" if you get the price wrong, you may not make any money. i think price is underrated by you as a term of successful investing, which is why i'm giving you the price due. how do you find the best price to pull the trigger? when you're investing for the long haul, you have one advantage over people using a longer term horizon. time. as a long-term investor, you've got all the time in the world. now, when you want to buy a stock because you like the company's prospects and nothing to drive up the stock soon, you can afford to be patient. you don't have to pay the price the market's giving you. you can be patient and wait for the stock to come down to your price. you can keep your bat on your shoulder and wait for your pitch.

of course, you're never going to get an all clear signal telling you it's time to buy. maybe a 3-0 comes in where you've got to keep your bat on your shoulder any way. so how long exactly are you supposed to wait before you pull that trigger? simple. you don't know. this is one of those areas where you have to embrace the fact. that's why i tell you to buy in increments. loading up gently and over time. if you buy one level and the stock goes down further, you're going to feel like an idiot. most likely, you'll feel frustrated. people in the lightning round, i'm down two bucks, jim. i want to sell. you might want to use the weakness to buy more f. you go with your position in small increments, patiently picking up more, then you can avoid paying the wrong price, which is what really matters. i'm running it for years and years, i play with an open hand, not a lady gaga style poker face.

i like to buy with wild scales all the way down. that is some awe thentics wall street gibberish. buying with wide scales the way down describes the way you should purchase a declining stock when you think it's approaching the bottom. you want to get the right entry point and this is the way to do it. now, it's practically impossible to call a perfect bottom. people tell me they call it the bottom. inlg they're probably lying. that's why we don't try and time the buying. the odds of being wrong are just too great. instead, the way the pros do it is to buy incrementally on the way down. consider it your insurance against the potential bad judgment. your so sure that you're getting in on the ground floor. there is a basement if not several sub basements. this notion of scaling in to a position on the way down is a trick that helps you get around the difficulty of timing market exactly.

say you want four shares of caterpillar and it's trading at say 90. if you buy all four shares, you're going to feel like a stooge. like shep. and worse, you'll have lost two grand practicely in the blink of an eye. i don't know in shep was that stupid. start small. buy no more than 100 share, then wait for a pullback. buy more. rather than contemplating suicide, you're at a better entry point. you're rooting against the stock so you can buy at a lower price. if the stock sinks below 80, you had an amazing price there. the worst case scenario, caterpillar goes higher, you make some money. that's a high quality problem. when you decide to sell a stock, that way, you have calls all the time, i sold a stock at ten, it went to 15.

what do i do. you know about buying incremental. let's talk about scales if you're buying a stock that's sinking lower and lower every day. you can buy with the strict scales or wide scales. if you're using strict sales, say buy 1,000 shares. every time a stock loses a point, you buy another thousand. the essence of strict sales is buy in increments. whatever size the climb makes sense. you purchase is same amount of stocks. i regard it as smart and responsible. some places, it can hurt you. that's why i like to use wider scales. particularly a cyclical stock like caterpillar. the trick with wide scales is you buy larger and larger positions. at 90, that was a strict scale. now, let's talk about a wider scale. i used to think of it as a pyramid. another point i put on 1500, it's so low you can hardly

believe how poor the stock is. see what i mean about the pyramid structure? the lower the stock goes, the larger your buys should become. now, the great thing about wide scales is they leave you to lots of room to maneuver. using wide scales allows you to buy the greatest number at a lower price. when you like a company's fundamentals, you can wait for a market wide pullback or sector wide sell off. just make sure the story is still in tact, please. a company is broken, that's why it's going down. in that case, you need to abandon ship and find a better one to travel on and that happens every day. here's the bottom line. in this game, few things are in important than price. as a long-term investor, you have the luxury of being able to wait for a good one. be patient. keep your bat on your shoulder. wait for the right pitch. remember, don't buy all at once. buy with strict scales or hold

yourself or even better, wide scales and build that p pyramid. bill in connecticut. >> boo-yah, jim. i own some stock and dividend reinvestments for over ten years. now, i'm trying to determine how i get a cost basis. >> you can get your cost basis, you have to look at the average number of shares that you bought and then i think you're broker's going to have to help you on the cost basis. it's a great question and i'm not sure exactly, but my broker has, i can't -- it always had an average price for me when ever i wanted it, so i would go to your broker. any way, price matters. put on that poker face and be patient. you have the luxury. institutional investors don't. make more money. [ dad ] ah! lilly.

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every stock you buy comes with an expiration date. knowing when to sell those, especially your winners, is every bit as important knowing when to buy, buy, buy. with look, in fact, it's actually more critical because so many people make such a huge number of selling related mistakes. either by panicking and selling in a weakness or by getting graed di and not selling at all. if you picked the right stocks, the ones with fabulous long-term stories and getting them at the right price, then you'll have some winners.

greed is not good in this show. it's dangerous. it is down right dangerous. bulls make money, bearing make money, but pigs, they get slaughtered. if you've got a serious winner and you think there's many years of gains, you've got to take some profits off. no discussion. i know you'll be tempted to let your winners run, but that's a mistake. you have to ring the register on some of your positions otherwise, your winners could become losers. it's best to lock in profits by selling incrementally. believe many, you haven't really won until you've taking something off the table. i know this is a totally enthet cal position to anything we've heard about stocks, but after what we've lived through, the destruction of so much old tech, the flash crashes, just sitting on all your big gains, it does seem a little foolish, doesn't it? be sure that you never turn a huge win into a gar began yun loss.

for starters, you don't need me to tell you to sell your losers. when you own a stock and your underlying company lets you down, maybe management isn't executing. maybe the economy takes a turn for the worse. don't get sent mental on me, will you? these are pieces of paper. a second chance to bring you, then take a much larger loss. >> the house of pain. >> lots of people hang on to the losers often because they were once big winners or because they're waiting for them to get back to even and that is the worst kind of amateur mistake. even then, these people know that the losers deserve to be sold. they want to sell, they're just waiting too long for unrealistic price that's too high. hey, it will get back. i know if i just wait, it's like some plan. like bloom in sn selling your loser seems to make sense.

your winners, that's totally intuitive. but you have to trim your biggest gainers. diversification. your positions can get so big, say you own a stock that's doubled again. apple. 15% in portfolio, then goes up huge. it's going to represent a much larger piece of the pie. that point, you have too much exposure to a single stock and too much exposure to whatever it's in. that's why my charitable trust almost tripled its price. totally because of discipline. we weren't clairvoyant. but discipline always -- never have more than 20% in portfolio because keeping all your eggs in one basket is dopey. apple just got too big. maybe we are better lucky than google. as is often the case, necessity

was the mother of invention and the mother of profits. that's why you need to trim your winners. so they don't become too large a piece of your portfolio and then they get you in trouble. now, if you're investing for the long-term, you've got time to do this gradually. as your winners go higher, scale down slowly. never sell all twuns. try to wait for ments of strength to get better price, but don't wait too long. you don't want your portfolio to become too heavily weighted. there's still one concept. that's the idea of playing with the house's money, which i explained in one of my rules a couple of books ago. when you own a stock that's had a huge run, you want to trim your position to the point where all the money you have invested in that stock comes from profits you've made and not a penny comes from your original investment, once you pare back your winners, you can afford to take far more risk with what's left.

you can let that run forever, i don't care. you can ride it all you want and never let it go. it's bought and paid for by the house's money. younger investors can afford to let their gains run longer nan than older investors. those of us closer to retirement can't afford it. when you're young, it's less important because you've got your whole life to make it up in your regular job. those of us in the older demographic, even if you're extraordinarily well preserved like myself, you've got to be more careful. that means trimming your winners more aggressively and ringing the register more regularly than any young investor. you've got to remember to make profits. when you can, try to take your investor capital.

hey, skip. >> hey, jim, love you. when callers ask about your advice for buying gold. they state your preferences for gold coins, bouillon, then stocks. why do you favor coins the most and two, which coins are best and does it matter? >> i prefer coins because you can store them easily in your safe deposit box. they're easy to have. gold stocks have been horrendous. they're a huge mistake. samantha in new york. >> hi, jim. i'm so excited to talk to you. love your show. have a big brooklyn boo-yah for you. >> give you a carol gardens boo-yah for you. >> i'm 22, but my job doesn't offer 401(k) or any type of retirement account, so i want to start investing myself with a little money i have. >> i think that sounds great.

>> do i start investing with speculative stocks because i'm young enough to lose it? >> you're only 22, it's a terrific time to start investing and i want you to mix it up. have some real speculative stocks, but for 20% of your capital, 80% of capital, a dif dividend, farm, bull worth names. if you tell me you've got great specks, i'm willing to take up to 30% because you've got your whole life to make it up and congratulations for being 22 and wanting to invest. we take lessons where ever we can find them. kenny rogers. when it comes to long-term investing, you've got to know when to fold them, hold them and when to sell, sell, sell. stay with cramer.

if you want to invest long-term, then it means planning for retirement. in this quote, we all retire. enough money to become financial independent, that's wh this game is really all about. i'm sure you've heard the basics of retirm planning. you've got to contribute to your 401(k) plan and your individual retirement count or ira. and that is conventional wisdom and this time, it's actually right. it's helpful. so tonight, instead of just telling you to part some money in your ira, going to give you some suggestions. fist thing you need to know why everybody tells you to take advantage of your 401(k) and fund your ira, these are boat tax plus. it comes from your pre-tax and you don't pay any taxes on the money you contribute. while your money stays in these accounts, you pay no taxes on your profits. that's what compound for free. for years, tax free gives you much larger returns over decades and decades.

you only pay taxes when the money is withdrawn and then it's taxed as regular income, just the once. that's a sweet deal. especially if you're worried about tax rates on dividen or capital gains going higher, a lot of people try to front run the change in tax law, but at the end of the fiscal cliff to -- but it turned out you department have to. as much i like a tax status of 401(k) plans, i've got to tell you something almost nobody else is going to say. most company plans, they stink. they have high management fees, administrative costs, larly when the returns are low and worst of all, they typically offer you lousy choices and not nearly enough control over them. the 401(k) business is a racket for the managers who get to charge these fees. i can't believe i actually said that because it's true. when you're managing your own money, you want a diversifieded portfolio, pick up five to ten stocks. most 401(k) plans don't let you to that. often, they let you choose by no

more than a dozen different plans, so that's fine, but i'd like to have more variety. some stock funds, some bound funds. that's all they offer. best you can do is find a decent, no cost index fund. put your 401(k) min in there. given that the whole premise of mad money is that you can do better by managing your own, that makes a 401(k) a poorly designed vehicle. sometimes, it seems the whole system is set up to benefit the financial services industry, not you. given the way washington work, i wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the case. as much as most 401(k) plans stink, you should still contribute if you have one. in order to take advantage of its tax plus nature. they're just too good to pass up. plus, many employers will match your contribution and i'm a big believer in never turning down free money. the first thing you should do is put enough money in your 401(k) to max out the company match, then stop.

then the rest of your retirement investment should happen in your ira until you hit the upper limit of what your allowed to contribute. ira gives you the freedom to invest any way you want and yes, you can see, do both. you're allowed to. what should you buy in your ira? your best bet is to own high yielding stocks to provide protection and generate income. for example, as much we like high yielders, you don't want to buy mass limited partnerships. they're the highest high yielders. take the pipeline stocks. the reason, mlps is tax advantaged as their distributions are considered return to capital. which means you don't pay taxes until you sell the stock. if you buy too many of these stocks, you could end up giving up that tax favored status and paying the irs taxes that you wouldn't have paid if you'd bought the mlps at a regular brokerage.

i always try to figure out how much you could buy, it's just not worth it. too many people said, jim trks too hard. the same rule can hit you request certain real estate investments, but in general -- please be careful. consult your tax professional about the mlps and the reach for your retirement accounts because that's all up to the individual. beyond that, you need to use the same metrics to apply to any other stocks. looking for high dividend stocks, but it needs to be safe. meaning the company needs to have enough to cover the payout. these can be powerful contributors over time. those can plame out and cause a real hole in your investing plans. don't be afraid of owning plain old utilities. they've made you a lot of money if you've took those dividends and put them in the same stocks that -- the best way to prepare for your retirement is putting

money in an ira account, then investing in high yielding dividend stocks. the goal is to reinvest your dividends, let them compound year after year without paying taxes until you withdraw your money at the end. i cannot believe people don't have an ira or 401(k). that's just plain wrong. stick with cramer. [ female announcer ] enjoying breakfast together is a pretty wonderful thing. but when you have a picky eater... won't touch this. it can be a bit of a dance.

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how are you supposeded to pick stocks for the long haul when sectors are constantly going on the wall street fashion show? when in reality, that's simply not the way this game works most of the time. there are few stocks that can just keep riding higher and higher, year after year, but when you find them, they are the holy grail. stick with that fashion show analogy. like i told you before, there is no such thing as a stock you can own forever.

that's the essence of the kind of buy and hold thinking that has lost so many people so many huge sums over so long. >> the house of pain. >> but some winners are more lasting than others and a certain type of stock that can produce incredible gain. they can be owned for much longer. i'm talking about secular growth stocks. a rare breed that you should always be on the lookout for. these companies are always driven by stories that transcend the strength or weakness of the underlying economy. cyclical stocks. but a true secular growth story can deliver fantastic numbers even in a lousy economy. numbers so good they can keep powering the stock higher. how do you spot a genuine name? i like to look at big picture themes take the move toward healthy eating in this country and natural, organic themes. this has made wholefoods the go

to place for all things organic. same goes for celestial. it's also worked for companies that harness the internet, netflix, amazon, of course, google. of these, i think google has the most staying power and that is the driver of stocks. google's got social, mobile. cloud. i don't see that diminishing anytime soon, however, while these stories can last for years and what you see, there are fewer and fewer plays that consist in making money. years ago back when the smart phone was a new invention, i started talking about the internet tsunami. you could buy second and third best, but in the end, not even the best of the best, apple, can thrive when the theme runs out of gas.

the fact apple can go down and go down hard is a reminder of the fact nothing can last fore ever. and a recognition that something that was once a secular grower may have become much more hostage to worldwide economies. hey, listen, pc. pc's used to be growers. in my formative years as hedge fund manager, nothing could compare to merck, pfizer and lily. fast forward 20 years and with innovation dwindling, they've become like utilities. they are con ed. these stocks would likely be owned by those seeking income. a rising tide does not lift all ships. the ones with holes in them still sink. here's the bottom line. most of the time you can't just hang on to stocks for years and years, but if you find a secular growth stock, something that's driven by the same kind of thing that's pushing up a wholefoods or google, then there's nothing wrong with owning these stocks for as long as it's not in tact.

but just like life, secular growth doesn't last forever. remember, even the biggest wave like the wave of apple sends up crashing on the shore eventually. jason in maryland. jason. >> hello, how are you? >> i'm fine. how about you? >> i'm hanging in there. i was just wondering about small mid and large cap investments. what are the benefits and cons of each one? >> large cap often includes the fact it might have a good balance sheet. it's got cushion. mid cap may mean more hit or miss in a sense that a mid cap company may not be able to witt stand the larger economic issue. large cap companies have great benefits. small caps are speculative and may hit the ball out of the park and strike out. diamonds may be forever, but stocks are not.

you must stay disciplined and you've got to do homework to survive. stay with cramer. easo why do you feel exso tired afterward? instead of refueled and focused, you're foggy and sluggish. it's that 2:30 feeling again. so how do you get your clear, alert feeling back? have a coffee... then another? do this instead. take one 5-hour energy. in minutes foggy and sluggish is gone... hello clear and alert. 5-hour energy. take it after lunch. be clear and alert for hours. with head & shoulders?

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all night, i've been trying to walk you through what it does and doesn't mean to be a good long-term investor, so one last point i need to make and it's this. there's nothing inherently virtuous about long-term investing. notion of trading has become a dirty word and it shouldn't be. it is loaded with negativity. so immoral to flip in and out of the stocks with short-term gains. i think picking long-term -- an easier strategy because you're busy working all day, but if you find your portfolio does better when you're trading in and out more frequently, then more power

to you, but don't forget, you don't have to horses to compete with those high frequency bandits or the hedge funds with multi-million dollar research budgets. at the end of the day when you go to the bank, they don't care whether you made your money in short-term trades or long-term investments. we've seen -- iran and international sanctions to spite them. presuming you can find a human isn't going to say look, i'm sorry, i can't accept this deposit, not that way. this money, no. it's dirty money from trading, so take it somewhere else. that conversation has never occurred. money ice money. but to hear some of the buy and hold gray beards talk is the kind -- has to do with your time. trades are positions you want to hold for shorter period of time, weeks or months and investments are for the longer, a year, year and a half counts as long on this show.

don't be fooled between trading and investing. you don't have to choose between sitting on your holdings as an investor even when you feel you should be taking action or flitting in and out on a daily basis. you can do both or either/or find a happy medium. be true to your disciplines. do your homework. stay on top of things and i bet you'll do better than just about any mutual fund. only those who are trying to manage money for themselves and their many minions would disagree. stick with cramer. [ sponge ] now for the main event.

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long-term investing. no, no, no. it's not a way to say i don't have to care. you should care even more. there's always more, promise to find it, mad money. i'm jim cramer and i will see you next time. >> announcer: the following is a paid program for life alert. [sirens wail, horn honks] >> i can't believe how quickly the fire spread. >> our house and everything we owned went up in flames. >> mom? ...it was really, really scary

to just see her lying there helpless a, and nobody could help her. i couldn't even do anything. >> you had an intruder? >> it's scary, and i had this sense of real fear. >> i think it was the most frightening time of my life. i've never been through anything like that before. >> will you be ready if disaster strikes? will your aging parents be ready? what if somebody breaks in? if you wake up to find your home filled with smoke? if you fall and injure yourself and can't get to a phone? if you can't get the help you need when you need it, the consequences can be catastrophic. on today's show, we will meet people caught in that delicate balance between life and death. we will learn how they handled the threat and how they protected their own lives and those of their families. if you trip, if you have a stroke, a heart attack, a broken hip or any other medical emergency, if a fire breaks out in your home, if someone breaks in, you need help. and when you need that help, how will you get it?

meet mary tompkins. mary lives by herself and has always been very independent. after a minor medical emergency, her family became increasingly concerned about her living alone. >> i've always been self-sufficient. my husband and i raised three children and i've always taken care of myself and the house. i want to live alone. my husband passed away five years ago and i don't see myself remarrying... but i don't have the same energy or strength to carry on my life like i used to have, and i, i worry a little bit about my safety if something should happen to me. >> i live five minutes away from my mother, but i worry about her all the time. it, it's not that she's frail, exactly, but she's not as strong as she used to be, and i just can't stand the idea of her getting into trouble and not being able to get help. >> mary: last year i slipped in the shower and the pain in my hip was so intense that i

couldn't get up or get out of the tub, much less go to the phone and call someone for help. >> she fell in the bathroom, she was just lying there for hours. >> mary: luckily my daughter was coming over for lunch that day... >> mom? >> ...and when i didn't answer the door, she opened it with her own key. >> mom? mom? >> mary, faintly: help... >> mom! mom? ...it was a nightmare come true. she was just lying there, and then the hot water had run out and gone cold, so on top of everything else, she was getting hypothermia. >> i kept thinking the pain would go away and then i could get up and find a phone and call for help. i wasn't dying. >> daughter: mother made light of the situation, but i could tell she was badly shaken up. i couldn't help but think, "what if i hadn't come over for lunch that day?" it really scared me. i didn't think she should live