The other side: TheStreet.com's James Altucher rebuts Barron's, sort of...

Yes, it is a cute response. Meaningless, but cute! Altucher's test period is too short, ridiculously so, to "prove" anything. But I do believe him as to Cramer's picks being better than those of Barron's! Oh, well.

Both, using Altucher's methodology, underperformed the S&P 500 over the chosen "sample period". You would have done better with one buy of SPY. Better still, probably, if you then held it for a year and a day. Any of these people ever hear of transaction costs? Spreads? Income tax on short-term capital gains? The value of your own time, which could be spent having a life? Active investment management? Just another way of saying "negative alpha"? Has anyone ever started a recovery group for Street Addicts stock pickers?

Putting Cramer's Mad Money Picks to the Fire