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Monday, November 26, 2007

Bob Brinker "Bold Bull"

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This morning, Peter Brimelow wrote a review titled "Wild ride -- but Bold Bulls aren't budging"
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Here is an excerpt about Bob Brinker:
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Commentary: Checking in with three letters during manic-market moment
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Nov 26, 2007
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"Marketimer doesn't seem to have bothered with a hot line at all recently. In its issue dated Nov. 5, Marketimer summarized: "We remain bullish as we move toward the winter season. We continue to rank the stock market as attractive for purchase on any weakness into the area of the S&P 500 Index mid-1400s, in the event such weakness occurs. In the absence of such weakness, we prefer a dollar-cost-average approach for investing new stock-market money. All Marketimer model portfolios remain fully invested."
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Marketimer says flatly that it thinks the risk of a recession is low, although it expects housing difficulties to continue "well into next year." "

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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wild-ride----bold-bulls/story.aspx?guid=%7B07CF0C2B-5BA6-4E34-BBAF-442BFDEFF0E0%7D
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Honey here: In addition to what Peter Brimelow wrote about Brinker's market views, in the November issue of Marketimer, Page One; Paragraph One: Bob Brinker wrote the following:
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"..........we expect that the cyclical bull market that began shortly after our major buy signal on March 11, 2003 ..............has further to go in terms of percentage gains and durations. We continue to believe that there is no risk of a cyclical bear market............."
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It is worth noting that Bob Brinker has never informed Moneytalk listeners that he no longer believes the cyclical bull market is running concurrently with a "secular bear megatrend." He never told his audience that in June, 2007, he declared an end to "a secular bear megatrend" retroactively, as of June, 2006. (Even though he had talked at length about it on Moneytalk.) Bob Brinker repeatedly predicted that this so-called secular bear which he claimed began in "March 2000," would run 8 - 20 years and would include several cyclical bull and cyclical bear markets.
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It is also worth noting that Bob Brinker has not once written about "secular trends" in Marketimer since the June, 2007 issue, where he tucked away a short notice that the secular bear market had ended as of a year ago.
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6 comments:

Unknown said...

Your link doesn't work very well but did you see where Brimelow said that Brinker was one of the THREE newsletters that successfully called the end of the bear market?

And he is still beating the market over the past twelve months.


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The "Bold Bulls" is my name for the three letters THAT CALLED THE
END OF THE BEAR MARKET after a particularly dramatic down day in early 2003: Index Rx, MARKETIMER, Profitable Investing.

...Marketimer's Bob Brinker has not been quite so successful recently, although he's ahead over the last 12 months -- 17.3% vs. the DJ Wilshire's 15.1%

Honeybee said...

Hi Ambrose,

I have tried to fill in the blanks that Bob Brinker has spun concerning the "end of the bear market."
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I know that it is probably a lost cause due to the fact that the Brimelow's and Hulbert's, etc., are so willing to simply accept at face value Bob Brinker's latest spin. They do not hold his feet to the fire--so to speak--or tell the whole story.
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And I do not accept Brimelow's premise on face value that Brinker is up 17.3% in the last 12 months--do you? They may be true...but I think we need to verify those numbers before we repeat them as fact.
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Additionally, Brinker's "advertised" performance record is tainted by the fact that he never accounted for the QQQQ trade, so he has used AT LEAST 20% of his model portfolio cash reserves TWO TIMES.
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Mark said...

Honey,

good analysis as usual. And then, what about his ultratech stepper (UTEK) recommendation which I bought, and just saw go down from the moment he recommended it.

Mark

Honeybee said...

Hi Mark

You are right that there is quite a "history" regarding Bob Brinker and "UTEK."

Since you lost money on Brinker's recommendation, I will plan to make it one of my future projects to compile this history and some commentary about it into an article
--just for you. 8^)

PS: Did you know that Bob Brinker touted UTEK under an alias on three different message boards for at least two years?

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Unknown said...

Thanks for the feedback and sanity check on Bob.

I think Bob does great work for a lot of people, and he does have his flaws.

The thing that is frustrating about Bob is that we know what his spiel is. He knows what his spiel is, and if he'd just stick to it that would be great.

Why a guy who doesn't believe in individual stocks and true market (short-term)timing would dabble in either makes no sense.

It's like Michael Jordan playing baseball.

As Ben Graham said, "if you can make money in charting...that's the row you should ho."

I've done some spreadsheet calculations and found that if you can beat the market by 1%, it is well worth it over 30 or 40 years. Noone listening to Bob should attempt to do better than this. Hitting for the fences usually results in strikeouts.

If you want to do individual stocks, or short-term contrarianism, you can't get it from a radio show with millions of listeners.

He seems to have to always sound like he knows everything. I guess this is calculated to impress the sheep listening to him.

In the long run, at least for me, I'd be more likely to give him money if he'd just stick to long-term timing, and when he doesn't know about something, like gold or individual stocks, just say so. He usually does this, but not always.

What makes me recommend Bob to others is that he is different from the standard touts, perma-bears, and perma-bulls. The more he acts like the sheisters, the less I can recommend him.

Honeybee said...

Hi Andrew,
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I cannot disagree with any of your commentary about Bob Brinker--and as you know, that is my "job." 8^)
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You seem like someone who has a real knowledge about Brinker--coupled with an open mind. I'm very impressed.
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So how about we make a deal? I will do my best to present a "sanity check" for Brinker and you do your best to keep me on the "straight and narrow" with my facts. 8^)