Portrayed by Clooney, Cramer’s picks underperform market

“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer‘s charitable fund — a personal stock portfolio he co-manages that TheStreet.com, which he co-founded, has built a subscription service upon — shows he doesn’t beat the market, reports Jennifer Booten of MarketWatch.com.

Booten writes, “The Wharton researchers released the report Friday to coincide with the release of the new film ‘Money Monster,’ which stars George Clooney as a financial news host with a show similar to ‘Mad Money.’ In the film, a less-sophisticated investor named Kyle Budwell takes Clooney’s character hostage with a bomb vest after losing all of his money because of a bad stock recommendation made on TV.

“The Action Alerts Plus portfolio, which is used in part by Cramer and TheStreet.com to sell $15-a-month newsletter subscriptions that provide subscribers information about the fund’s holdings, its buy-and-sell strategy and exclusive market commentary from Cramer, was found to have returned 64.5% cumulatively over the past 15 years, versus 70% for the S&P 500, when adjusted for the reinvestment of dividends, according to the Wharton researchers’ study. The Vanguard Diversified Equity Fund, by comparison, a mutual fund composed of a blend of U.S.-based companies, has underperformed the S&P 500’s total return by 0.8% over the last 10 years, according to Morningstar.”

Read more here.

In another story about the movie, Booten and Jeremy Owens quote Cramer as saying: “I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t speak to it, but any day that George Clooney possibly plays a character rumored to be based on me is a win in my book,” he said. “I think Louis C.K. might be a little more believable.”