How It Feels To Lose $150 Million

By James J. Cramer

My dot.com's been smashed! But don't cry for me--O.K., you probably aren't--I'll do fine. And so will the business. That's how this entrepreneur consoles himself when he looks at the stock performance of TheStreet.com a company that came public at $19 just a few months ago, roared to $70 on the first day of trading and now finds itself below the offering at about $18.

It is not unusual for the market to fall in love with a stock, seduce it and then abandon it. What is unusual is for this to happen faster than a college tryst. For TheStreet.com where I am the largest shareholder and a writer and director, the impact of the decline was more subtle than the fall was jolting. Right out of the box, investors gave us a big market cap--in essence, a club to beat up or buy up competitors. But then they took the club away before we could start swinging. We were looking brash and predator-like--top of the food chain. Now we feel like timid prey. A chart of our stock looks like one half of the Apollo's Chariot ride at Busch Gardens--the first part, which starts at the top. It's been a dizzying decline.

And yet nothing has fundamentally changed at TheStreet.com We are a real business, still young, that has to pound it out day to day. We even had some good news in a recently announced, better-than-expected quarter, although the market scalding sure does take away from the achievements we feel the company has made. Worse, a Chinese wall keeps me from consoling the journalists who are seeing their riches decrease by the day.

The disconnect between TheStreet.com's performance and that of our stock seems as great to the downside as it was to the upside, when we came public. Both are mystifying to me, even though I am a full-time hedge-fund manager who writes on the side.

Our company hasn't been alone. All of the dot.coms in our so-called cohort, Internet financial-information services and content, saw their stocks similarly sliced and diced. (Indeed, I was doing some slicing myself. My hedge fund has been unloading dot.com stocks as if they were contaminated.) If we had a Dot.coms Anonymous, I don't think my story would be any worse than half a dozen other entrepreneurs.

That doesn't make me feel any better. But I am still way ahead of the game, considering my cost basis. That's somewhat more mollifying, and it's been my wife's rallying cry through every handle down in the stock. (A handle is the first number in the quote of a stock, as in $6, $5, $4, $3, $2 and now $1 as the stock becomes a "teenager.")

Oddly, the sell-off could be a godsend in disguise. We need to see the dot.com door close, and close hard. We got our money from the market to grow and prosper, but we would prefer others not to have such good luck. The fewer dot.coms in our space, the merrier.

Ultimately, as someone who, when he started the company, never expected to see the riches, paper or otherwise, I am confident that if we execute our business plan at TheStreet.com we will see lofty heights again. Until then I am trying to enjoy the ride, whatever the direction.

James J. Cramer is a hedge-fund manager and writes for theStreet.com This column should not be construed as advice to buy or sell stocks.