Billed as a cacophony. Not every headline matters to the stock market no matter how full of gravitas it might sound, but how the heck are you supposed to tell the difference between what matters and what doesnt . In this information overload how do you know what truly deserves your attention and what you can pass on . You only have so hutch time doing your homework on your portfolio so you have to use the time wisely. The squawk on the street, the 9 00 show, but this stuff comes so fast and furiously that you never have time to ask does that even matter . You presume it has import even if it doesnt. Thats why for my new book, get rich carefully, i looked through five years from the Charitable Trust i talk about to see which pieces of data were actually worth paying attention to and which ones were overhyped and unimportant because i think this is a crucial subject. Today i want to share with with you my findings so you could be a more mediasavvy investor. Im a radio, web, parties are going do real damage to your portfolio if youre not savvy. Let me start with the big one. Looking back at my Charitable Trust for the last five years, theres one thing that stands out above Everything Else and the only thing that has a Lasting Impact on the stock market is the Labor Department nonfarm payroll report. Thats the big employment report we get on the first friday of every month and it is worth every bit of focus. There are a ton of different employment numbers that come out in this market and the weekly jobless claims and they have important tales of what will happen with the big picture Monthly Labor report, and i am telling you forget about the monthly claims unless there is a definitive trend and one direction and even then it could be fatal to trade off of as you get close to the big Labor Department numbers. Sometimes by the governments own admission, the weekly figures arent even tallied right. Hows that for credibility . Also in the jobs front, the nonfarm Payroll Department we get the report called the Automatic Data Processing or adp, the largest processing report, i am telling you, ignore that adp number, too. Its meaningless, people. In fact, the adp employment figures have no reliability as what the big daddy, nonfarm payroll report will be and thats the only employment report they am telling you you need to predict and be worried about. You do need to predict and worry about it, though. However, how you can ignore the monthly picks you cannot ignore this Labor Department nonfarm payroll number, as i look back on what came out on friday night after the monthly jobs report release. I have five years worth of data. I was astonished to how it could be. Any disappointing employment number leaves a Lasting Impact that can take weeks of declines in its wake, really, and if its followed by another bad number, you get a further decline even though the number has fallen in the precipitous numbers of accounting and you need to see three months of stability meaning no further job losses and not necessarily job gains before the market will actually stop drifting or plunging lower. I cant believe this. I did this work and i couldnt believe it myself. Meanwhile,s flipside is also true. Nothing can frustrate a bear market in excess of the previous month. A big number thats better than expected and thats the ultimate triple whammy for the bears. And can produce a spectacular performance for the bulls. When these payroll numbers come out, theyll pick apart some figure to make it less important. I am telling you, these people are charlatans, hold your ear, ignore them and hope that others dont so you can take advantage of any weakness to do some buying at lower levels than you deserve to get. These cynics are simply crafting arguments to excuse their incorrect predictions or they just dont understand. Maybe they learned the lesson of the Great Recession and cant believe honest to betsy good news when they hear it and that piece of the puzzle simply isnt as important as the sheer number of hires. What really matters, if youre negative on stocks and they increase the number of hires in a row and not a drop in the Unemployment Rate then you will miss a terrific opportunity and thats what i found from examining the last five years from my Charitable Trust. Look, i dont blame you if you wait to see a second payroll number in a row, thats simple prudence. A really good report coming in the wake of several flat ones can justify careful buying. Just to be sure i am quite conscious of the fear of the fed if the economy is Getting Better as represented by the labor number. I dont care, when Interest Rates are as low as they have been. If youre trying to buy stocks after an excellent reporting report, heres a tip. If you wait until after 10 00 a. M. On the day a strong jobs report coming out, you will almost always get a better price than you would at the opening. The reason . Because after a good payroll report theres often a huge amount of Short Covering in the first half hour of trading as the negative hedge funds have to short out their positions by buying stock. Once the buying is done you tend to get a vacuum and the market begins to decline. Wait for the moment before you do your buying. Dont be picked up on the day that the nonfarm payroll reports are out and i would remind you, at 9 00, dont be picked off. Ill be on the floor of the exchange. Youll get better proses that moment if you just wait for the panicked short sellers to finish closing out the wrong positions and those who feel your fed tightening dump their holdings. The house of pain. Dont be worried that you missed the move that the market has more room. I just want you to got the best cost basis possible after a great monthly report. Heres the bottom line, not every piece of Government Data that gets thrown in your face from the media really matter, but the nonfarm Payroll Department, that is crucial. So please dont ever ignore these numbers and theyre the most impactful ones that youll ever which across. When your eyes glaze over, take solace. The only one that matters comes out at 8 30 a. M. On the first friday of every month. John in florida. John hi, jim. John. How have you been . Whats up . Im certain of the following question, if i purchased 1,000 shares of a company, lets say at 10 today and three months later i purchased another thousand shares of the same company at 5. Now, if the stock goes up a dollar can i take the profit on the success thousand shares or must i sell the first thousand shares and take a loss of a dollar . Im uncertain of the answer. Okay. I want you to talk to your tax guy on that. You can elect the lot, but youve got to talk to your tax guy because i want to know what he says and i dont think that specific advice will be helpful to you. Can i go to jim in arizona, please . Jim. Hi, jim. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. My question is about secular and cyclical stocks. Youre always telling us to make sure that were diversified in our stock portfolio. Right. And im just wondering how should i diversify these types of stocks in my portfolio . To get rich carefully goes over this because i think the most confusing thing i may have done for a lot of people is to say i like secular growth, not cyclical. Cyclical means you need big gdp growth. Secular means you have a long runway of product that will be in demand no matter what. Thats celgene. What you have to do is you plot how your stocks have done against a market in good times and bad when theres growth and no growth. Thats what i do. Ive looked back using chart, 1989 and 1991. 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and see how theyve done. Youve got to do that history if you want to really feel confident that you have a secular grower whose numbers dont get cut, versus a cyclical grower and a whole chapter on that in get rich carefully. Sonny in illinois. Sonny jim cramer, a big chicago windy city booyah to you. Sweet. Hey, jim, im always taking your advice. Longtime fan. I enjoy your show and your books. Thank you. I have a question for you. So im always taking your advice and reading up on the company, going in and listening in on the quarterly Conference Calls. To report solid numbers and fundament also, what is your definition. Ive always used 5 to 7 . Something Lee Cooperman when he was the Research Director at goldman. He said the first 5 to 7 , take a hard look and that may be where youre starting to do some buying. I know its easy to get over the numbers that are thrown your way every day. 8 30 a. M. On the first friday of each month, that is the number to Pay Attention to, the rest of them, dont let them confuse you, but a good employment number is good for the stock market. Dont think otherwise. Mad money will be right back. Dont miss a second of mad money, follow jimcramer on twitter. Have a question . Tweet cramer, madtweets. Send jim an email to madmon madmoney cnbc. Com or give us a call at 800743cnbc. Miss something . Head to madmoney. Cnbc. Com. 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I think the filtering out the clutter and being able to focus like a laz or whats generally impactful is so important that i devoted an entire chapter in my latest book get rich carefully to show you what does matter and what doesnt and tonight im sharing some of these insights with you gratis although the cynics in the audience might point out im be shamelessly selfpromotional jimcramer, to which i say, of course, in an effort to cut the bull. Not that kind of bull, let me tell you why you should stop caring about it immediately. I know we want to presume that every piece of data, every single piece released by the government, whether it be the commerce department, Labor Department and the Federal Reserve is of great import that it would impact your investment, i say hold it we listened to this stuff, we read it and wait for analysis from people who were supposed to know what they were talking about and we make decisions off these bits of data and we sell the stocks off them and when you do this, you think you know what youre doing. Let me tell you, its a mistake. In the last five years of public trades of my Charitable Trust, i can tell you other than the nonfarm payroll report r i mentioned after the break, most of the data has been just plain wrong. I know that soundses inconceivable and the media has spent so much time dissecting these numbers how can it not be mean . Every news editor has a list of data that comes out in any given day and in advance of its release has decided that a big story must be done around that information. Yes, there is a day book. Although when i started in journalism it was a handwritten ledger and notice that every gem or piece of fools gold is held up as being all important and that is what i call hyperbole. Unfortunately, hyperbole is the gist of this business. Its having something to say day in and day out. How do you think that all of those blogs get filled . With that in mind, let me warn you about one of the most overhyped day books out there, the monthly release from the Federal Reserve. These are considered to be the holy grail, i kid you not, but i have to tell you in reality they mean nothing. Nothing at all. The the minutes are almost a total sideshow, and i should be it considering that my most famous tv moment came because i knew that the fed knew nothing. First, let me explain the fixation with the fed minute, it releases a summary of its thinking that took place at the median trading. They wait with bated breath and it is viewed as one of the single most actionable papers meaning they want to take action on it, but the truth is its not actionable at all even as so many take uninformed silly action, i might add. Forget that the fed minutes are amonthold by the time we get them. Forget that circumstances may have changed since the last meeting and a spike in oil and a cliff jump or two in washington. The document is treated with reverence, even though it should be viewed as irrelevant and its oftentimes inaccurate with the current set of facts. In the beginning of the horrific period that generated into the Great Recession, i was beginning to get hideous feedback from many of my sources within major investment firms that thing his gone seriously awry. Over my 30plus years of wall street i managed to trust people early. Not everybody is right, but these people are people whom i trust for the most part and they trust me, at the time of august 2007 i was getting an earful from acquaintances who thought i wasnt doing enough to bring the Financial Network to light. I was listening to the Conference Call by the lamented bear stearns and i was shocked by how defensive and fearful the executives seemed to be. They were having difficulty, but they were prepared for them. The only way to prepare for difficulties on wall street is to say nothing about them. That meant baird wasnt prepared at all as we saw from the firms collapse when it came not long after. At the same time the management was yammering on about how they were Holding Things together. I was getting calls from several people saying if the Federal Reserve didnt start cutting rates right then and there there would be a huge problem, not just for the mortgage industry, but for the entire u. S. Economy. I was on street signs, i was steamed so badly they violated my rule about trying to be and then i began to rant, as erin burnett gingerly tried to calm me down i went on a tear about how the fed was oblivious. I have talked to the heads of almost every single one of these firms in the last 72 hour, and he has no idea what its like out there and bill poole has no idea what its like out there my people have been in this game for 25 years, and they are losing their jobs and these firms are going go out of business and hes nuts theyre nuts they know nothing we now know how everything turned out. The fed really did know nothing. The economy collapsed as the fed held tight to the view that there was nothing wrong at all and their judgment was the worst Economic Policy blirnd since the hoover administration, fortunately the fed reversed itself over and it was a better late than never affair and heres smith didnt know at the time and it cuts to the core of how useless the minutes are. The fed releases the full transcripts five years after their meetings so i later learned that the fed met soon after my stop trade appearance and my reaction came up in the conversation. It came up as a laugh line. They tliel made a point of ridiculing my prognostication. As we soon learned it was a very dark comedy. Heres where the fed minutes come in. Not long after my rant the fed released the minutes of the previous meeting where they said it was always well and those who felt it was just plain wrong. The minutes emphasized that the fed would cut rates as needed and things were nowhere that dire. When i read that, the people now who think these are all important i and my source might be too negative and my sources were wrong. Maybe i was being too bearish. The minutes were so reassuring that i acted on them and sent out a bulletin on august 17, 2007 saying, quote, at last i believe the worst is behind us. Even though i had been right about the Systemic Risk of the crisis to come and did change my mind soon after this bulletin, i ended up to be way late in cutting rates and took its time about it and the damage be onning ared pretty much as predicted, and i did believe the feds statements were paramount. I just violated and instead of the actual actions taken by the secretive committee and since then i learned not to put too much trust from these out of date notes. You shouldnt either. The bottom line, i need you to do something that i think is very difficult and i need you to ignore the fed minutes and dont make any serious decision, and i know given the furious and volatile action that occurs after the release, it probably seems ridiculous that these minutes could be that irrelev t irrelevant, but they are, people. These supposed allimportant releases are dodges that throw you off the set and cause you to make bone headed decisions. If anything the monthold fed minutes are good for is giving you buying opportunities some of your favorite stocks by creating unwarranted and, yes, undeserved, pullbacks. After the break ill try to make you more money. Im jim kramer and welcome to my world. One man, one mission. I just want to make you money. You need to get in the game tens of thousands of miles traveled . This new black gold rush is just getting started. Its the sound of american industry roaring back to life. Hundreds of ceos. My life story can be your life story. Thousands of callers. Booyah, jimbo millions of your emails and tweets. Mad money thanks cramerica for being with us for over 2,000 episodes. Its as simple as this. At bny mellon, our business is investments. Managing them, moving them, making them work. We oversee 20 of the worlds financial assets. And that gives us scale and insight no one else has. Investment management combined with investment servicing. 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