CNBC star shows UM students the inspiration and method to his ‘Mad’ ness

Cheerleaders led chants, mascot Sebastian the Ibis revved up the crowd, and raucous students rose from their seats erupting in joy several times on a recent sun-drenched afternoon.

But this was not a sporting event. These University of Miami students were rooting for a 67-year-old man in a tie and dress shirt. He was telling them what stocks to buy and how to interpret the Federal Reserve’s most recent interest rate hike.

Jim Cramer, the former hedge fund manager turned CNBC star, brought his daily show “Mad Money” to the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus earlier this month, broadcasting an evening episode to a student audience, part of his “Mad Money Back to School Tour” started in 2006.

“You represent what I think is the next generation who will invest,” he said to the students, after taking the stage erected in the patio besides Lake Osceola. The Patti and Allan Herbert Business School hosted him.

In an interview with the Miami Herald while on campus, he said the tour was his attempt to bring a pro-capitalism perspective onto colleges, what he argued is needed today. “I think there are a lot of universities now who think that business is not to be celebrated,” he said.

Whether that is true or not, or to what extent it is new or long indicative of a typical campus environment — Cramer said he belonged to the Socialist Workers Party while he was a student at Harvard University — is debatable, but the CNBC host thinks taking his show on tour is one way to counter that.

In Miami, that notion has wider implications with booming technology and finance sectors creating new jobs.

At UM, Cramer found a welcoming, even adoring crowd. About 100 students were seated while dozens stood.

Mark Patishman, 18, a freshman studying finance, said he has watched Cramer’s program since he was a kid.

“He has a funny personality,” said Patishman, explaining his appeal. “It’s different than if you watch a normal report on the stock market.”

His friends enjoy the show, too, he said. “We watch it at school.”

Latin American tech firms

The taping began with a student from Brazil asking about two Latin American tech stocks — Nu and MercadoLibre. Nu is a fintech company that held one of the New York Stock Exchange’s largest initial public offerings in 2021, and MercadoLibre is the region’s largest ecommerce company.

Cramer responded, “I think Nu is terrific,” and that he was an early investor in MercadoLibre.

Then, teams of students pitched Cramer different stocks.

Sean Betancourt, a 19-year-old freshman majoring in psychology and marketing, said Cramer’s appeal to him is “he is down to earth.”

Spending a day on campus speaking to students, the CNBC host came away impressed.

“It’s so great to be with people who’re asking all the right questions,” he told the Herald. “No one is asking me about Gamestock,” he noted but rather “how to accrue [money] so they can put dinner on the table.”

Still, there were signs that these students belong to a new, unique generation.

Madeline Hannemann, 21, a junior majoring in marketing and management, said she only saw Cramer’s show on CNBC once before his campus appearance. She grew familiar with him from seeing clips on TikTok and YouTube.

“I just want to learn more about investing and making more passive income,” she said, while seated in the audience about an hour before taping started.

Jess Degen, a 21-year-old senior majoring in finance, and Victoria Barr, 21, a graduate student in finance, rarely watched CNBC despite belonging to a student-managed investment fund at the university.

“I’ve seen him on TikTok and Instagram,” Degen said.

For Barr, Cramer’s appeal is: “He has very strong viewpoints.”

The students got lessons in finance and investing, and a surprise lesson in television production.

Taping was planned to start at 4 p.m. — students were seated by about 3:30 p.m. — but on this day tech giants Amazon, Alphabet and Apple each released their quarterly earnings after the stock market closed.

Cramer starts each show discussing the top business stories, but he could not do that until those earnings were released and the stock markets reacted.

So, he recorded the show backwards and in between each segment, he checked his laptop for news updates.

Cramer told the Herald he would likely soon be back in South Florida, since he had additional reasons to visit. His wife is relocating to Delray Beach. She is trying out the Sunshine State for the next few months in part to grow her mezcal business Fósforo, he said. They have already rented a house here.

Cramer said he will initially come down on weekends. “She wants me to come down every weekend,” he noted. “That’s hard for me but I will do my best.”

Career roots in Florida

He is also considering broadcasting some of his shows from Telemundo’s Miami studios. He said he first has to run this idea by his bosses, but he taped a recent show from there as a test.

Cramer has history in Florida.

His first job after college was as a reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, then a Knight-Ridder newspaper. But he said he had really wanted a job with the Herald based in South Florida. “I bet everything on Miami” at that time, he said.

After two rounds of interviews, he felt confident. “I made the second round, and I was thinking ‘I’m going to work in Miami and it’s going to be the greatest thing in the world,’ ” he recounted. But then he got denied and instead was asked to work for the Tallahassee Democrat. He still has the letter.

Some University of Miami students also had a history with Cramer as well.

One in particular, Francesca DiMisa, a 21-year-old junior pre-medical student from Boca Raton, rose from her seat and took a microphone to tell him that her father died of pancreatic cancer when she was only 8 years old, and one of the few memories she has of him was watching Cramer’s show together.

Attending the broadcast was a way “to keep my dad’s memory alive,” she later told the Herald. “I had to prepare myself a lot for today.”

After her moving question, Cramer descended from the stage and gave her a hug.

Meanwhile, as the show was being taped, CNBC staff in New York hustled to simultaneously edit in time for the 6 p.m. Eastern national broadcast. They pulled it off.

And as viewers across the country started watching that evening’s episode of “Mad Money” from Miami, Cramer was still on stage, answering questions from students.