"What the groundhog will see Commentary: Top timers over last 4 years weigh in on market"
In Hulbert's Marketwatch article, he claims that Bob Brinker is one of his "top-timers" over the last 4 years.
Hulbert said: "To get insight into how to play the markets in February, I turn to a group of stock market timers who have acquitted themselves particularly well in recent years." Unbelievably, Bob Brinker is second on that list of "top-timers" who have "acquitted themselves particularly well in recent years." (Since 2007)
To appreciate the utter absurdity of Hulbert saying that Bob Brinker was a "top-timer" over the past 4 years, you need to know two things:
1. Bob Brinker made no market-timing changes during that 4 years (his model portfolios have been fully invested since 2003). THERE HAVE BEEN NO MARKETIMER SELL-SIGNALS SINCE AUGUST 2000.
2. In Hulbert Financial Digest, Bob Brinker's Marketimer did not make the top-7 in any category in the 5-year performance ranking. (See the excerpt from the January 2012 HFD below.)Hulbert's deceptive writing would be comical if it wasn't so tragic for those who rode the stock market down 57% in 2008 (and early 2009) while Hulbert's "top-timer" remained fully invested. (Bob Brinker issued several all-new-money-in buying opportunities as the market continued to drop. Some bought in at 1450 on his advice. The market bottomed at 677.)
So again, Mark Hulbert shamelessly uses subterfuge to promote Bob Brinker's "market-timing," when in reality, Brinker has been a buy-and-holder for all these years. Read about Hulbert's "Honor Roll" HERE and read about Hulbert's QQQ Brinker-mulligan HERE.
From the January 2012 issue of Hulbert Financial Digest. Note that Bob Brinker's Marketimer is not there:
18 comments:
2. In Hulbert Financial Digest, Bob Brinker's Marketimer did not make the top-7 in any category in the 5-year performance ranking.
Hulbert's article pertained to stock market TIMERS who may or may not be listed in the 5-year performance rankings.
Those 5-year numbers are likely to be skewed by high flying specialized newsletters.
How does Brinker compare over the long term?
Reader
Reader,
Hulbert's 4-year "market-timers" article is not only "skewed" it is STEWED! That is what we are discussing.
If Hulbert had said he was checking for anything EXCEPT market-timing, it might have had a grain of credibility. But we all know Bob Brinker was fully invested between 2007-2011 -- through the worst bear market since 1929!!!
Mark Hulbert wrote in Marketwatch:
"To get insight into how to play the markets in February, I turn to a group of stock market timers who have acquitted themselves particularly well in recent years. Specifically, I retrieved from the Hulbert Financial Digest’s database a list of those advisers whose market timing advice beat a buy-and-hold in the stock market in each of the last four market cycles:
The 2007-2009 bear market
The bull market that lasted from March 2009 through April of last year;
The bear market that lasted from May through the end of the 3rd quarter; and
The bull market that began at the first of October
Now Reader, do you agree that has to be the biggest crock of lies you ever read? How has Bob Brinker "acquitted himself well" in recent years? By issuing buy signals from 1450 to 850?
That article has got to be the most rabid case of yellow journalism I have EVER READ!
Do Bob Brinker and Mark Hulbert collaborate about how to wash each other's hands and sell symbiotic newsletters? I don't know, but I have my suspicions....
Bob Brinker missed the biggest bear market since the great depression.
He was so wrong he had his conservative "balanced" model portfolio #3 nearly 2/3rds in equities at the top and told a caller to not rebalance to 50%.
His other portfolios were 100% in equities. His fixed income only portfolio lost money in 2008 while the total bond fund at Vanguard gained 5.2% .
He was so WRONG that he issued a fabled GIFT HORSE buying opportunity near the very top in the mid 1400s.
In May 2008 Brinker ranted on the radio that any of us warning of an impending recession were "Recession Cassandras." Well, we were right! Then he kept issuing buys all the way down until days before the very bottom in the 600s where his March Marketimer newsletter didn't have a buy or dollar cost average advice.
As a market timer, Bob Brinker was a failure in the bear market just as he was in the 1987 bear market except this time he didn't go to 100% cash near the bottom.
Mark Hulbert reported:
Brinker's fixed income advisor model portfolio #1 lost 21.7% in 2008.
Brinker's fixed income advisor model portfolio #2 lost 11.5% in 2008.
Brinker's fixed income advisor model portfolio #3 lost 5.2% in 2008.
Brinker's fixed income only portfolio in “Marketimer” lost 2.1% in 2008.
All the "Brinkers'" fixed income portfolios lost money in 2008, a year Vanguard's GNMA fund was up 7.22% and Vanguard's Total Bond fund was up 5.24%.
"How does Brinker compare over the long term?"
This guy admits his ratings are worthless for Brinker:
"Please note: In late 2000, Brinker forecasted a several-month bear market rally and recommended an investment in the NASDAQ 100 Index, a trade that turned out quite unprofitably. However, because Brinker at the time of making this forecast chose not to make this trade part of his model portfolios (he did not tell his subscribers this advice was "official" until weeks after the rally failed to materialize. Hulbert even admitted he bought QQQ for his portfolios then sold them for a loss when they didn't show up in Brinker's model portfolios while Brinker was saying to buy more), his HFD record has not suffered as a result."
__ Mark Hulbert on Pg 16 of the January 2012 issue of "The Hulbert Financial Digest - Long Term Performance Ratings"
Dilbert,
You are correct. And note that Mark Hulbert also lists a bear market for 2011. Hulbert said:
"The bear market that lasted from May through the end of the 3rd quarter; and
The bull market that began at the first of October
We know that Bob Brinker NEVER admitted that the market declined within a hair of 20% TWO TIMES in 2011.
At least, Hulbert is honest enough to call a bear a bear.
But the important point is that Bob Brinker also rode it down fully invested.
So Hulbert claims Bob Brinker did "well" during those bears. What a complete crock of bull.
Do I sound ticked off? Well, I am. this kind of dishonest crap that only causes financial harm to people is what gives "Wall Street" a bad name.
"Do I sound ticked off? Well, I am. this kind of dishonest crap that only causes financial harm to people is what gives "Wall Street" a bad name."
Do you think Hulbert's other newsletter information is accurate? I mean how can we really trust what he says?
It does seem strange that he would rate a market timer who has been fully invested. How does that work?
Reader
Reader asked: "Do you think Hulbert's other newsletter information is accurate? I mean how can we really trust what he says?"
Reader,
I don't know, but based on what I DO KNOW about his selective treatment of Bob Brinker's Marketimer and Bob Brinker's (the second one) Fixed Income Advisor, I wouldn't trust Mark Hulbert's reporting to be honest or even fair for anyone...
Even if he does treat all other newsletters equally, they are not being treated equally COMPARED to the Brinker newsletters.
Brinker a Top Timer? He couldn't time a three minute egg!!! What a joke! Hulbert must have taken a wide stance in his stall and Brinker complied!
The unemployment news sounds good on the face of it, but there is more to the story:
Jobless rate has fallen because of dropouts
The big drop in the unemployment rate in recent months to 8.3 percent from double-digit rates during the recession came at a fortunate time for President Obama, but economists say it as much because of young people dropping out of the labor market as it is the result of businesses adding jobs.
Read more at Washington Times
From: Celtictrader
Strong jobs report pushes Nasdaq to 11-year high
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-markets-stocks-idUSTRE80T0J120120203
Lest anyone doubt the power and influence wielded by our blog owner, Ms. Honeybee, they need to look no further than the recent Senate vote to prevent insider trading by member of Congress.
This vote, which passed 96-3, was taken on Thursday, a short time after Ms. HB ran the review of the book "Throw Them All Out" by Peter Schweizer.
Mark Kirk (R-IL) did not vote because of a recent stroke.
The three voting against included Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Tom Coburn (R-OK)and Richard Burr (R-NC).
Sometimes a "Nay' vote on what seems like a no-brainer piece of legislation is because the legislator believes the law does not go far enough. Such is not the case with the three Senators. Check out this story,
http://biggovernment.com/whall/2012/02/03/which-three-senators-voted-against-banning-insider-trading-in-congress-and-why/
The cleverly named STOCK Act now goes to the House.
-- Frankj
Anthony Mirhaydari is a lib kid who makes his living selling technical analysis advice to traders.
I enjoy his insights, though he appears to wrong far more than right and tends to go full bore with either exuberance or pessimism.
All that said, I find his views stimulating. I keep thinking when he is finally old enough to shave maybe he will get dose of reality, put down the crack pipe and ditch his liberal views.
Click here to hear even a liberal concede the job picture sucks
tfb
It might be worth trying to find out how much old bob pays Mark. Never heard of a four year time frame for measuring performance.
FrankJ....Thank you for posting that article about the vote to ban insider trading in Congress.
Here is the hyperlink:
What Three Senators Voted Insider Trading in Congress and Why?
tfb: Santelli said the same thing as Anthony did about the jobs report.
-- Frankj
TFB....Yes, this new unemployment number seems a bit slanted. This is a paragraph from the article you linked to:
"I don't know how else to say this, but the "improvement" in the job market is a hoax. The drop in the unemployment rate is coming mainly from people leaving the work force in record numbers -- 1.2 million, mostly young folks who we need to support the housing market. Those who are finding work are finding part-time, low-wage positions. No wonder "hard" economic data such as a drop in retail sales and a rise in the savings rate suggest a lack of progress out there.
In fact, during the month the number of full-time workers fell by 1.1 million. Not exactly a sign of strength. And there's more where that came from."
Hi Steve -- one of my oldest friends from Suite 101 days -- Thompson!
I like your idea of finding out how much Bob Brinker might be paying Mark Hulbert to basically lie for him.
If anyone questions my accusations of Hulbert lying, first read the article where Hulbert wrote that Bob Brinker was one of his top-timers in the past FOUR YEARS and compared him to "buy and hold." Then think about the fact that Brinker never raised any cash during that time, so how is he different from "buy and holders?"
Then read what Dilbert wrote here in this comments section above. IT IS FACTUAL!
I'm sure that Brinker sold many subscriptions based on Mark Hulbert's shady journalism. Why wouldn't he? Readers were not told that Brinker was fully invested the whole time. Readers were not told that he seriously mislead his subscribers during the 2008-2009 megabear if they followed Brinker's "new money" buying-opportunities at mid-1400s, mid-1300s, low-1200s and even mid-800s.
Even if no money actually changes hands between them, Mark Hulbert's benefit to this kind of phony-baloney is the same as Brinker's: Selling newsletters.
Here is an excerpt Mark Hulbert's Marketwatch article. I suggest that this is a COMPLETE FABRICATION based on the fact that Bob Brinker's Marketimer remained fully invested the whole time:
"I retrieved from the Hulbert Financial Digest’s database a list of those advisers whose market timing advice beat a buy-and-hold in the stock market in each of the last four market cycles:"
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