• CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday reviewed what could have led to last week's massive sell-off, telling investors the declines may have been facilitated by failed market strategies from larger institutions.
• "What did happen when the market fell apart a week ago? Why is everything so opaque?" he asked. "Simple: Nobody in this business is required to talk about how they blew it, how they simply didn't know what they were doing and lost a lot of money and caused your portfolio to get hammered as collateral damage."

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday reviewed what could have led to last week's massive sell-off, telling investors the declines may have been facilitated by failed market strategies from larger institutions.

"What did happen when the market fell apart a week ago? Why is everything so opaque?" he said. "Simple: Nobody in this business is required to talk about how they blew it, how they simply didn't know what they were doing and lost a lot of money and caused your portfolio to get hammered as collateral damage."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its worst day in nearly two years last Monday as investors sold off mega-cap tech stocks that had been Wall Street darlings over the past several months. Japan's stock market also declined sharply, with the Nikkei seeing its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987. But stocks rebounded later in the week, largely recouping losses.

To Cramer, last week's declines might have been caused by money managers from a variety of firms who used Japan's low interest rates to borrow money and invest in other global assets. He said those investors were then taken by surprise when the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate last week, bringing it to the highest level since 2008. The organization made this move to try to mitigate the yen's decline compared to the dollar.

These investors then had to sell off substantial sock because "they were playing with cheap money that suddenly became a lot more expensive," he added.

"We've had so many sell-offs based on mistaken strategies by large institutions," Cramer said. "Let's remember, last Monday's selloff and consider that it might've been about nothing more than flailing money managers, which is often the case with these big market meltdowns."

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