Mark Hulbert still uses a footnote to explain why he ranks Marketimer without accounting for that trade. The footnote claims that Brinker "chose" not to take responsibility for the trade in his model portfolios at the time he sent the bulletin. That is simply not true. Brinker "chose" not to take responsibility weeks later. I have informed Mark of that, but he "chooses" to ignore the facts.
Will Brinker ever again raise cash in his newsletter model portfolios? Why should he? He is on record saying that if you can't tolerate a 10% drop in the stock market, you should not invest in it. And he considers up to a 20% drop an intermediate correction which only becomes a bear market when it drops more than 20%.
With that in mind, recall that he says never sell into weakness and he seems to be perpetually bullish. If the market goes into another bear, he always has those pesky "exogenous events" to fall back on like he did the 2008-early 2009 megabear.
Beware of Bob's "special bulletins." This one was sent in February 2008 just as the megabear market was getting started. Excerpts:
February 10, 2008
S&P 500 Index: 1331.29
We view any such stock market weakness as an attractive buying opportunity for subscribers seeking to add to stock market positions. We regard any additional testing and probing in this S&P 500 Index price range as an opportunity to purchase equities at what we regard as bargain level prices."
The following "special bulletin" was sent a year later when the S&P was below 900. This was his fifth and final bear-market buy level and it was 150 points above the March 2009 market bottom. Excerpts;
January 15, 2009
In the January edition of Marketimer we stated that "when the conditions fall into place to justify a renewed buy recommendation, we will post a Special Subscriber Message" at the website. We also stated that "we believe the most likely area for a successful test to occur is within the low-to-mid 800's S&P 500 Index price range...............The return of the S&P 500 Index to that price range is an encouraging development, in our view. We regard any weakness in the low-to-mid 800's S&P 500 Index price range as an opportunity to buy into the stock market at favorable price levels."
Brinker's most recent bulletin on August 10th, which he basically covered on Moneytalk two weeks ago (reviewed here), didn't give any new buy level.
Conclusion: Be very careful about following Brinker's "special bulletins"! Ask yourself why would he bother to issue new "buying opportunities" without issuing a "sell-signal" first.
Chart courtesy of Kirk Lindstrom Please click to enlarge:
