Pen-name, Great Gambino, wrote the following commentary under the title, "What's a Brinker Follower to Do?"
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"Now I know you are in a real tough position. Its obvious that the market is collapsing and there may be no end in sight. Who knows where it will stop? Even Bob has not a clue.
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Just wait and see where the bottom is he says after telling you to dive in with all market money at 1450 and now the market hovers at 1300. You lost 10% if you did it! Wait and see to put more money in, what the heck is he talking about? Any advice to hold off on putting more money in is ridiculous because he already told you to pour it in at 1450.
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But you brinker subscribers have to go back to 1988, to the mid 90's to the QQQ trade and see how Bob handled himself when the market did what he did not predict. You have to recognize that Bob hasnt seen the market going continuously lower over the past few weeks since he has not directed you to get out.
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Maybe he's at the golf course and cant be bothered. He's got enough $$$ to survive and that's really what counts, isnt it? Even a 4 0r 5% dodge of loss could mean something but he has done nothing.
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A deer in the headlights as he himself would say.
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Then you have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky? Because in reality that's all you got going for you at this point. "
10 comments:
Brinker won't be on this weekend. That is money in the bank.
Great Gambino:
As most of us are or were at one time or another a MT subscriber we all have had some positive and some negative comments about Brinker. The major question we all ask now is why....................he never saw or acknowledged this banking/securities/housing depression.
#1- he saw it but chose to ignor it
#2- he saw it but did not know how to reflect it to his model porfolios
#3- he has conflicts with other business in the industry that prevented him taking a stand
#4- he never saw it coming and when he did it was too late
#5 - he gave it thought to going to all cash but reflected on his bad QQQ call a few years ago
#6 - Bill Flanagan convinced him to buy and hold
#7- He started hanging a few years ago with Andy Reids( Eagles Coach) sons.
Seriously, my thought is that he was so late in seeing the crash and has never been famililar with the world economy that he is finished.
Brinker is like a greedy gambler on tilt.
I listened very carefully last Saturday (1-19) to Mr. BrinKer. It was obvious that BrinKer's confidence was serverly shaken. I have been listening to him for years and I have never heard him like that before. Then he whines and blames the market fall on ohter's - yup lets play the shift the blame game Mr. BrinKer.
He never has an exit stratigy in place in case things go "south" so when you get in if things do go south you are on your own.
He won't be getting my $185 again. $185 for what - so I can lose more money.
One thing is for sure no one, no one can predict the futrue not even the egotistical, puffed up sarcastic great one called Mr. bOB BrinKer.............
I've been a MarketTimer subscriber for a couple of years now, and I really respect Bob Brinker. I've learned a lot from his newsletter, to the point where I've been making profitable shorter-term trades that Brinker never even called for.
What Brinker (and most everybody else) hasn't realized yet is that stocks are almost as overvalued now as they were back in 2000. Ever since the tech peak, corporations have reduced their dividend payments in favor of buybacks. The dividend yield of the S&P 500 has been below 2% for several years now, when it's normally supposed to be between 3% and 6%. As far as long-term investors are concerned, it's as if half of corporate earnings have been going up in smoke. Now the bubble is finally bursting.
I think if Brinker had used the dividend yield of the S&P 500 as his primary valuation metric instead of P/E ratio, his timing model probably would have tripped the bear market alarm some time in the October-December range.
Brinker went from "ALL in" at "mid 1400s" and the S&P500 chart fell to the 1200s. At 1325, Brinker sends a bulletin to say anyone with money should stop the lump sum and return to dollar cost average until he “identifies” a bottom.
Well, when the market was at all time highs in the mid 1500s, what was he identifying in the “mid 1400s?”
Bob Brinker is not the only “media guru” who is having difficulties. Check out the video "Rick Santelli Takes Down Jim Cramer" then answer the poll question “Is Jim Cramer Lying in the video "Rick Santelli Takes Down Jim Cramer"?”
It is sad asset allocation with low cost index funds and regular rebalancing doesn’t get the press it deserves. Then again, advertisers with expensive investment products (such as a market timing newsletter) won’t advertise on a show like that.
It's not just Brinker or Cramer who is missing the boat.
I think ALL so-called gurus should be avoided as well as all investment newsletters.
Professor Malkiel says nobody can time the market and nobody can successfully pick individual stocks over the long run.
Kirk is right when he says people should just stick to index funds and forget about the rest of the stuff.
All gurus and newsletter writers are frauds who spin and hide their real results.
Burt,
I think it may be a mistake to categorize all newsletters the same as Bob Brinker's
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Brinker sells his newsletters based on the premise that he can predict the future direction of the stock market and side-step the 20%+ bear-declines.
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Additionally, he "sells" his ability to predict buying opportunity levels for "new" money--while at the same time, he has his subscribers fully invested.
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It is this schtick that is in question. Here is why:
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1) He has been enthusiastically bullish since June, 2007--predicting new highs and mid-1600's in the S&P 500 Index.
2)In August 2007, he issued a buy-signal in the mid-1400's--raising it from "1380 or lower."
3) He thought the "summer correction" had been "health-restoring" for the market.
4) He said in December that the market looked "favorable" as we "enter" 2008.
Burt, I am sorry you had such a bad experience with Brinker that you mistakenly believe all others are dishonest.
I can name many honest newsletters off the top of my head that report all their results since inception, including my own. I would be happy to send you a copy of my list of buys and sells since I started my newsletter nearly 10 years ago. The list over 15 pages long now. I update it monthly and send it as an attachment to my monthly newsletter. On that list I update monthly, I show a graph of my portfolio by month so anyone can calculate the returns between any period they like. It is too bad Brinker doesn't do that, but then he'd have to show his portfolios went down when he has so many thinking he was safely out of the markets between January 2000 and March 2003, even without the QQQ. If you include the QQQ trade, which I can't find a mention of anywhere on Brinker's site despite it being for up to a third of investment assets, then Brinker's portfolios suffered much more than he advertises.
The topic here is Brinker so maybe we should return to that topic.
If you have ANY other questions about my newsletter, then send them to me via email as I suspect Honeybee will not like us being off topic here.
I was curious what Brinker had to say so I tuned in this past weekend. I thought it was an interesting show. This environment reminds me of the 1998 panic. The market correction then went far beyond a 10% pullback and had folks very frightened. I don't know what Brinker was saying then, but nobody is calling that correction in 1998 a bear market in hindsight. Everyone loved the late 1990's, but foget that there were volatile moments then, too.
So is this like 1998 all over again? If so then maybe the bull market isn't over, but maybe near its final run?
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