Investors have many options when it comes to their investments, including making their own stock picks, following the advice of experts or letting money managers manage their funds. When asked if they would rather have Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary, Cathie Wood or Jim Cramer manage their money, Benzinga viewers made several things clear.
Benzinga Viewers Pick Their Money Manager
When it comes to picking a person to manage their money, Benzinga viewers appear to lean towards "Sharks" from the hit entrepreneur and investing show "Shark Tank."
Benzinga recently asked viewers of "PreMarket Playbook" to pick between four well-known figures in the finance world to manage their money. The show, which runs Monday through Friday starting at 8 a.m. ET daily with host Ryan Faloona, generated 238 unique votes in the poll.
"Which investor would you trust the most to manage your investment account entirely?" Benzinga asked.
The results are:
- Mark Cuban: 35%
- Kevin O’Leary: 33%
- Cathie Wood: 23%
- Jim Cramer: 9%
Cuban, well-known for years on "Shark Tank" and the previous majority owner of the Dallas Cowboys, won the poll by a slim margin over O’Leary, another famous "Shark Tank" figure.
Both individuals are known for landing deals on "Shark Tank" with Cuban sometimes ruthless in his offers and time clocks for people to make a choice during, while O’Leary is known for deals with royalties and lowballing on offers.
Cuban famously sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion and has a long track record of successful investments, which may explain his selection.
Wood, who is the CEO of Ark Invest, may have the most history of managing people’s money with Ark Invest running multiple well-known ETFs. The flagship Ark Innovation Fund (BATS:ARKK) is up 278% since inception, but remains down 33% over the last five years.
The money manager is known for betting big on technology stocks and growth names believed to have large potential over a five to ten-year horizon. That strategy has proven to be successful sometimes, but also sees underperformance when valuations on stocks get stretched or questioned by investors.
Ranking a distant fourth place in the poll is CNBC personality and former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer. Like Wood, Cramer has experience managing people’s money thanks to his past roles outside of television.
However, these days Cramer is known by many as the person to do the opposite of, thanks to the popular Inverse Cramer idea. This popular idea once launched an ETF and has an Autopilot fund that has over $100 million in assets. That Inverse Cramer Fund outperformed the S&P 500 and a Nancy Pelosi tracker in recent years.
Cuban Remains Popular Option
A previous poll ran by Benzinga on social media asking about potential money managers also saw Cuban as a top option.
“Who would you trust most with investing your life savings?” Benzinga asked in August 2024.
That poll had more than four options and featured legendary investor Warren Buffett, who was still the active CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the time. Buffett was excluded in the latest poll as he is now retired.
Buffett easily won the poll with 58% of the vote. Of the other options, Cuban tied with Elon Musk at 11%.
Wood, who was also in both polls, ranked sixth of seven options at 3%.
The full results of the August 2024 polll were:
- Warren Buffett: 58%
- Elon Musk: 11%
- Mark Cuban: 11%
- Ray Dalio: 9%
- Jamie Dimon: 6%
- Cathie Wood: 3%
- Bill Ackman: 2%
Musk, as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, was previously a top option, but his status may have faded in recent years with Tesla stock struggling.
While the polls can’t be directly compared too much due to the number of options available, Cuban ranked ahead of Wood in both and remained popular in both polls.
Watch Thursday’s PreMarket Playbook episode featuring the poll below:
Photo: ssi77/Shutterstock
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