Some are already praising Bob for his September 22nd buy-signal alert (at S&P 1129). Well, the "backing and filling" he mentioned took the S&P down to 1099, thirty points below where he said it was "attractive for purchase." But who's counting?
It's nice to give credit where credit is due, but one needs to be well-informed before making investment decisions based on just one of Bob's calls. So in order to put this in perspective, let's take a look at some of the things he said earlier this year.
March 20, 2011 Bob Brinker said: The generally accepted language for a correction is that the market is down over 10% but less than 20%.....I think anything in the single digits is a minor pullbacks. Some people would call it noise. That's really what we've had here.....And my forecast, as I've given it on this broadcast has been very consistent on this point......And that is, and we started saying this earlier this year, and that was that we thought that pullbacks would be in the single digit category..... So you can always see short-term corrections in a cyclical bull market, which is what I believe we are in right now.......From my point of view, it's just provided those looking for an opportunity to dollar-cost new money into the market, to do so.In April, the S&P 500 Index reached a high of 1363. From my May 1st Moneytalk Summary:
Bob said: "And now 2011, with 4 months in the books, has a 9% rate of return. So it's off to a very good start. Nasdaq Index doing alright itself, 2873. The Nasdaq 100, which is the basis for the triple-Q ETF stock price, 2404.....Of course, the bear stories have been out there. The people with their bearish forecasts have been out there this year. So far, what they're left with, at least as we complete the month of April, they're left with the 2011 stock market highs on the close on Friday."
In July, Bob said that he had been buying in the 1200's. From my July 31st Moneytalk Summary:
Brinker said: "And certainly we've seen some nice dollar-cost-average opportunities this past week in the market. I must admit on Friday I was taking advantage of some of the bargains that were out there with the market in the 1200's, reacting to this hyper-drama out of Washington DC. I know many of you also have been taking advantage of the dollar-cost-averaging opportunities on short-term weakness - and certainly it's minor. I mean, 5% is really noise when you look at the market over time.......If you've been listening to this broadcast, we have not been part of the panic-brigade here on Moneytalk."
Brinker's "buying-opportunities" defy logic because his model portfolios have been fully invested since 2003. But still, he continues to maintain his reputation based on market-timing ability, and has never admitted that he has been a buy-and-hold advocate for the past eight years.
Somehow, he has successfully combined being fully invested and looking for "buying-opportunities." One has to wonder how those subscribers feel who are simply recouping losses after he proclaims the market "attractive for purchase!"
Somehow, he has successfully combined being fully invested and looking for "buying-opportunities." One has to wonder how those subscribers feel who are simply recouping losses after he proclaims the market "attractive for purchase!"
So far this year, the S&P declined to within a fraction of 20% bear territory on a closing basis, and 21.6% intraday. Does a fraction matter? It will only matter to Bob Brinker because he can claim that he did not miss another bear market. It's splitting hairs and he has to know it and has to be embarrassed. Maybe that is why he has not talked about the stock market since the "correction" went above15%.
S&P 500 Index statistics for 2011:
Date of Closing High: 04/29/11
Closing High: 1,363.61
Date of Closing Low: 08/08/11
Closing Low: 1,099.23
Decline in Points: 264.38
Decline in Percentage: 19.4%
October 4, 2011, Marketimer, Page 3; Paragraph 4; Bob Brinker said: "In our view, the S&P 500 Index has the potential to trade into the low-to-mid 1400s range in 2012. Our Marketimer model portfolios are fully invested."
So please weigh all of this information before making decisions. As Bob always says, learning is the best protection from shark attacks.
19 comments:
"So far this year, the S&P declined to within a fraction of 20% bear territory. Does a fraction matter? It will only matter to Bob Brinker because he can claim that he did not miss another bear market. It's splitting hairs and he has to know it and has to be embarrassed."
Embarrassed? Why would Bob be embarrassed for such a precision call?
There was probably some small degree of luck in that surgical call but facts are facts and he did avoid yet another bear market with a spectacular call.
I don't know why folks just can't sit back and enjoy the ride rather than searching around for nits to pick.
Thanks again Bob.
Bfan
Bfan,
I have a couple of questions for you. I trust that since you are such a big Brinker-fan that you will answer them.
* Are you a subscriber? If so, for how long?
* Are you fully invested, as Brinker is, and as he has recommended since 2003?
* Which one of Brinker's model portfolios do you use?
* How much did you put into QQQ when he sent out the bulletin to use up to 50% of your cash reserve in 2000?
These are easy questions, Bfan. Simple answers will do. If I do not receive answers, I will assume you are just a trouble-maker and delete your post.
Answer these questions or I will delete your post!!!!
Why don't you ever make such a demand on the Brinker Bashers? Never once if somebody has something nasty to say about Brinker.
But anyway, No I'm not a subscriber and never have been. As you well know you can get all you need to know about Brinker's letter on the web within hours of publication.
I'm as fully invested as I want to be and I don't follow any of Brinker's portfolios.
I put no $$$ into QQQs and you forgot about TEFQX...nothing there either.
If you just follow Brinker on the obvious calls, using your own ideas too, you will do alright.
This is one of those calls just like when he sidestepped the first bear market.
Bfan
Smoochie-lips repeats:
If you just follow Brinker on the obvious calls,
(((ROAR)))
Here we go again. Follow the obviously good calls, and ignore the bad ones like TEFQX and QQQ, and you will be a zillionare, just like GURU BOB, and you have to then give him credit for making surgical calls for NEVER EVER sidestepping anything.
Can anyone make this crap up? Does this SHILL ever come up with anything new?
The only thing this charlatan does surgically, is delete his bad calls and "POOF", they are gone forever.......except from this site.........
AND........THAT'S WHAT REALLY FRIES YOUR ASS, doncha agree?
Pig, you miss the obvious. First you subscribe to Bobby's Buy and Holder newsletter then you subscribe to someone Else's market timing newsletter. When Brinker's calls are confirmed by someone who knows what the heck they are doing then you act.
tfb
Note that the market has declined 21.6% intraday from the year-to-date high:
Behind The Money
By John Melloy, Executive Producer, Fast Money
Despite its classical definition on Wall Street, bear markets rarely end at just 20 percent alone, history shows, and this time will be no different, traders and analysts said.
At its intraday low Tuesday, the S&P 500 was 21.6 percent off from its May 2, 2011 high, marking its 16th ‘official’ bear market since 1940. But before the close, stocks rallied back above the 20 percent threshold on hopes that Euro-zone officials are hatching a bigger and broader bailout plan.
After that day’s four-percent reversal, the equity benchmark continued to rocket higher the next two days and will end the week with its selloff from the high cut back to about 16 percent. But investors don’t see the dance with the bear as over.
Tuesday’s “pattern did not meet the explosion in volume that typically comes with a climactic capitulation,” said Mary Ann Bartels, Bank of America Merrill Lynch technical analyst, in a note. “Once a bottom is formed it generally takes several months to complete a bottoming process.”
This bottoming process could involve a further 10 to 12 percent decline with heavier volume, Bartels said. History shows she might be correct.
Over the last 70 years, bear markets have averaged a 32 percent decline (and a median 28.8 percent drop), according to analysis of data compiled by Bespoke Investment Group.
Read more at CNBC.com
Smoochie says:
But anyway, No I'm not a subscriber and never have been.
Why would a relative need to subscribe?
When I asked Bfan if he was a Marketimer subscriber, he answered:
"No I'm not a subscriber and never have been."
Bfan,
I rest my case. You just proved it. Thanks for having the guts to say it.
Bfan said: "I'm as fully invested as I want to be and I don't follow any of Brinker's portfolios."
Do you have a clue how ridiculous that makes you look? You claim to be a Brinker fan, but manage your own investments and even your own portfolio.
Bfan said: "I put no $$$ into QQQs and you forgot about TEFQX...nothing there either.
If you just follow Brinker on the obvious calls, using your own ideas too, you will do alright."
Brinker's "obvious calls?
Now that is hilarious! They don't get any more "obvious" than "special bulletins" that say "Act Immediately" and buy QQQ at $83.
Bfan said: "This is one of those calls just like when he sidestepped the first bear market."
Firstly, your premise is false. Brinker did not "sidestep" any bear in the past 26 years. He partially sidestepped the one in 2000, but you knew that.
So now I wonder how much money you plunked down when Brinker issued his LATEST buy-signal at S&P 1129 -- on September 22nd.
This is NOT good news! I will post the last half of the article, but you will want to go and read the whole thing. Bob Brinker does not agree with ECRI and Mr. Achuthan, but:
An Ugly Forecast That’s Been Right Before
Mr. Achuthan, on the other hand, says that the gross domestic product rate is likely to go negative by the first quarter of 2012, if not sooner. He told me last week that he couldn’t tell exactly when the recession would start — or whether it had already begun. The institute made its recession call only after an array of economic indicators showed a “pronounced, pervasive and persistent” downturn consistent with a recession, he says. By contrast, in the summer of 2010, when some market bears interpreted the decline in one of the institute’s indexes as a signal that a recession was in the offing, the institute said the pattern pointed not to recession, but only to weakness.
Now, he says, the pattern is clear.
This time, Mr. Achuthan says, a host of leading and coincident indexes — those that suggest activity down the road, and those that measure current movements —are all pointing strongly toward recession.
The institute’s U.S. Leading Diffusion Index, for example, has dipped into territory that, with only one exception, would have signaled the recessions of the last 60 years. The single exception was in a short-lived downturn in 1966-7.
In addition, its U.S. Coincident Index has moved into territory that would have signaled recessions over those six decades, with three exceptions. Those were dips in September 2005, after Hurricane Katrina; in March 1993, after a huge storm on the east coast of North America, and in July 1952, after a steel strike. In none of those cases did the two indexes reach recession territory at the same time, as they have now, he says.
TAKEN as a whole, he says, these and other indicators are quite clear. “We’ve entered a vicious cycle, and it’s too late: a recession can’t be averted,” he says.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the end of the institute’s gloomy prognostications. What’s worse, he says, is that the business cycle appears to have become shorter than it was from the mid-80s until the start of the last recession, an era that has sometimes been called “the Great Moderation.”
Businesscycle.com
This is NOT good news
I fail to see how any event that gets rid of both the egotistical socialist Barack Obama and the useless socialist female hygiene device known as Bob Brinker can be bad.
There may be a chance under a Cain administration to actually embrace freedom again in which case the market will soar in the long term.
What is a little financial distress to dispose a tyrant?
tfb
TFB,
What was I thinking? LOL! I need to learn to think more long-term. :)
So does a recession bode especially ill for the share prices of the types of stocks that pay dividends reliably and consistently? I'm talking about individual issues, not indexes.
Yes, the share price might decrease but if they maintain the dividend ... that is somewhat like owning a bond whose price moves around... if you don't intend to trade it, so what?
Dumb question?
-- Frankj
Schwab economist Liz Ann Sonders says ECRI is "not infallible" and has given false signals in the past:
"Recession fears grew last week when the chief economist of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), which has a weekly leading index (WLI), wrote that the US economy was dipping into recession. Their index has been right in calling for recessions over the past three cycles, but doesn't have a long history. It also dipped to an even lower level last year and no recession was forthcoming, as you can see in the chart below—so it has given false signals."
Chuck
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/resource_center/expert_insight/todays_market/sonders/sonders_100411.html
There is a misperception as to what Laksmann meant by recession. LA was asked if by recession he meant the traditional definition and LA responded no. So as I stated before I think his longer term indicators are pushing him in this direction, but I fully beleive it would take an outside event to engender same. The exogy on the table is obviously Euromess. The question is can they push structured default off long enough so bank capitalization can occur. If they are successful in delaying it will not produce a Lehman type armaggedon trade. So IMO BB when he responded to this issue was spot on in saying you (LA or anyone) can't make up your own definition of what a recession is. It is by definition two consecutive qtrs. of negative gdp growth - which I already said ain't gonna happen. LA also confirmed as already stated that is not what he expects.
I read ECRI's book assuming I would learn tools and techniques to do my own forecasting, and really hoped it would delve into the details of how individual business sectors fare relative to each other throughout the cycle.
None of the above is included in the book. There's plenty of examples showing how a proprietary ECRI indicator made an accurate call at just the right time. They don't give any details of how that indicator is calculated. Initially this was very frustrating and I kept reading, thinking they'd eventually get to the details. Toward the end of the book I realized the book is actually an advertisement for their subscription forecasting services. I'd have saved time and money by not buying this book.
I must commend them for coming up with this innovative marketing approach of writing a book that's really an advertisement. Their subscription service is very expensive so they can afford to sell the book cheap. Lots of people buy the book becasue it's cheap, and that brings in a few more customers for the real product.
MT
Lakshman Achuthan (LA) saying yes to recession but, absolutely not to classic or traditional definition of recession - two neg. qtrs. of GDP growth
no way IMO can LA see ahead of his indicators, he's banking on wildfire spreading or contagion effect of his forward indicators.
We have already seen the impact of QE2 on this issue - don't bet against the Fed is my reaction. Bernanke will come back in w/ QE if he sees indication of deflation taking root... which it won't unless the worst fears of Euromess exogenous event comes to fruition.
it is not the earnings but rather the forward looks which are important. I suspect forward looks will be murky creating another buying opportunity at lower levels.
this is why we will revisit the lows of Oct 4th @ 1074.77: Europe Must Go Beyond Recapitalization: Geithner
not much has changed - just a commitment from Euromess leaders to recapitalize the Euromess banks.
Interesting statement just now from Rick Santelli in reference to a controlled default by Greece:
"I guess that's like finding a sane crazy person"
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