Bob Brinker's "Off the Books" Advice

One of the main purposes of this Blog is to inform readers about Bob Brinker’s “off the books” advice that he does not show in his “official” record and does not take responsibility for (or account for) either in Marketimer or on his six-hour national radio program, Moneytalk.

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Bob Brinker regularly brags about his “good” market timing calls, but never mentions those that were not good or even disastrous. As a result, Moneytalk listeners are totally misled and some might even say lied to — at least by omission.

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Kirk Lindstrom wrote the following comments about Bob Brinker’s “off the books” advice:

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“Brinker seems to put most his risky advice "off the books" so he can delete it from the newsletter if they go down (UTEK, ONTK, TEFQX) or keep them as multi year "HOLDS" if they go up (MSFT & VOD). In this day and age of exposing those that "cook the books" consumers should DEMAND accounting accuracy from those in the national spotlight. This sort of behavior (off the books accounting) from a national figure on a Disney Network should be held to EVEN HIGHER standards.”

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Bob Brinker devoted a lot of Marketimer space to touting TEFQX. In the February 2000 issue he wrote a full page about B2B in general -- and Kevin Landis’ Firsthand e_Commerce Fund in particular. Brinker relegated TEFQX to a “hold” about a year later after it had dropped from $15.99 to $.3.93. Brinker never mentioned TEFQX again.

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Brinker, Feb 8, 2000 Marketimer; TEFQX=$15.99:

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"Firsthand e-Commerce Fund is the newest addition to the Marketimer No-Load Fund Recommended List on Page four…… ..we would regard a five percent exposure to this fund as the maximum we would be willing to accept in the current difficult stock market environment.”

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Brinker, March 7, 2001 Marketimer; TEFQX=$3.93:

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"We are removing Firsthand e-Commerce Fund from the Recommended List. We rate the fund a "hold" at these levels… we expect the shares to recover value over time."

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Most of the time, Bob Brinker offers no follow up guidance after he puts these risky recommendations on “hold.”

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David Korn, who is Editor of David Korn's Stock Market Commentary, Interpretation of Moneytalk (Bob Brinker Host), Financial Education, Helpful Links, Guest Editorials, and Special Alert E-Mail Service, wrote the following comments about Brinker’s handling of TEFQX:

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“Other than the QQQQ recommendation from Bob Brinker, the recommendation he gave that probably comes in second place insofar as complaints that I get from my subscribers is TEFQX - the mutual fund that Bob recommended in early 2000. You may recall the excitement both on Moneytalk, and on Bob Brinker's discussion message boards at the time over this recommendation. I do give Bob credit on one count relative to this recommendation -- he put some of his money where his mouth was because he said that he owned the fund. Why? Because he felt that Kevin Landis, the fund manager, was a great stock picker.

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Unfortunately, Bob simply dropped the fund from his Marketimer newsletter and hasn't brought up the topic in years leaving many people who bought it on his recommendation to decide for themselves what to do about it. It is a familiar story when one of Bob's recommendations goes afoul I am afraid. I suppose its the ego thing. Do any of you still own TEFQX and have an opinion on it? I keep track of it because I get questions about it on a somewhat regular basis from my subscribers. Its net asset value closed at $3.81 Friday. It has $38.8 million under assets. It returned 15.74% in the year ending June 30, 2006. However, its 5-year return is -1.15% and even more dismal is the fact that it is down 14.21% since the fund's inception on September 30, 1999. - David Korn