I know something that Jim Cramer doesn't know. He's crazy about The Motley Fool. More to the point, he is smitten with many of the star performers in the Rule Breakers newsletter scorecard.

The Mad Money star celebrated his high-octane show's second anniversary on Wednesday by singling out our growth-stock newsletter's biggest winner in NYSE Group (NYSE:NYX).

"I think we're going to coin money in NYX," he told Wednesday's first caller, suggesting that "it's time to back up the truck" and load up on the fast-moving stock exchange.

It's not the first time that he has seen eye-to-eye with some of the newsletter's picks.

Let's take a quick history lesson to see how the paths have crossed:

  • He was zigzagging in and out of revolutionary medical-robotics specialist Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) at higher price points than where we gave our initial recommendation.
  • When it came time to find candidates that Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) might buy, two of his five suggestions had been singled out months earlier to our newsletter subscribers.
  • When prompted on The Colbert Report to pick one -- and only one -- stock to buy last month, he gave the nod to NYSE Group.

Coincidences? Am I just seeing things in the cloud formations after taking a swig of the growth-stock elixir?

I don't think so.

Condone me thrice
I'm not accusing Cramer of being a closet subscriber to our service. I just believe that his investing preferences don't stray too far from the Rule Breakers stock-picking philosophy.

Let's take a closer look at what happened back in October. Cramer decided to dedicate a few of his shows to pointing out promising online companies that would look great on Yahoo!'s tired arm. He suggested five public companies as potential targets for Yahoo!, including Monster Worldwide (NASDAQ:MNST), Bankrate (NASDAQ:RATE), and The Knot (NASDAQ:KNOT).

I have no problem with the picks. Monster is an ideal interlocking puzzle piece. It owns Monster.com, the only real competitor to Yahoo!'s own HotJobs.com. Bankrate would be a great way to beef up the company's financial-content offerings. Snapping up wedding-planning site TheKnot.com would help Yahoo! reach an audience of free-spending fiancees and, more importantly, the advertisers that covet them.

The catch here is that two of them are active Rule Breakers, handpicked for growth investors at much lower levels.

Cramer's vision proved to be flawless. Yahoo! didn't buy any of the three companies, yet the popular portal has ramped up its efforts to serve all three niches. Shortly after Cramer's serving suggestions, Yahoo! partnered to deliver employment classifieds to a consortium of newspaper websites, broadened its money portal for deeper personal-finance coverage, and launched Yahoo! Food to cater to culinary newlyweds.

Would Yahoo! have been in better shape to compete against Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) if it had taken Cramer's advice? Of course. The organic approach is cheaper, but it's often more economical to snap up the market leader than to create one more fringe-dwelling rival.

Ode to J.C.
Calls like the buyout bait for Yahoo! are the reason Cramer has earned the right to be the stock world's rock star. You may not like it when TheStreet.com's front man sums up investing advice in sound bites. You may not like the frenetic pace of the show that spurs speculation. I'm with you there. However, the last few times I have tuned in to Mad Money, I've seen Cramer take the time to emphasize due diligence with his callers.

Sure, it could just be waving phrases like "do your homework" to avoid culpability, but at least he's doing a better job of making the most of his celebrity status to educate as he entertains.

And now we have a bit more love this week for NYSE Group. I can't disagree with Cramer there. Sector consolidation continues among the exchanges, on a global scale. There will be efficiencies. There will be pricing advantages. There will be the potential for explosive earnings growth and even more capital-appreciation gains.

Happy anniversary, Cramer. Let's see what you bring to celebrate the third year of the show come next March.

NYSE Group, Intuitive Surgical, and some of Cramer's buyout bait have made the cut as Rule Breakers recommendations. See where we agree -- and disagree -- with a free 30-day pass.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a fan of Cramer and even read his autobiography a few years ago. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.