November 27, 2011..........................................................................(
comments)
Lynn Jimenez hosted Bob Brinker's Moneytalk today. Lynn is the business reporter for KGO810 radio.
BOB BRINKER WAS DIGESTING TURKEY: Lynn said: "Welcome, Welcome. You're listening to Moneytalk.... I'm Lynn Jimenez, I'm in for Bob Brinker, who is taking a little break to digest his turkey. Now during the week, I'm business reporter for KGO Radio in San Francisco, and the author of,
"Se Habla Dinero, the Everyday Guide to Financial Success."
STOCK MARKET WORST SINCE 1932....Lynn said: "There's no getting around it. It was a bad week for Wall Street. Friday marked stocks seventh straight loss.....This was the worst Thanksgiving performance since 1932.....For the week, the S&P gave back 4.7%, nearly a third of what it gained in October."
November 25, 2011, closing numbers:
DJIA: 11,231.78 = down 4.8% for week
S&P: 1158.67 = down 4.7% for week
Nasdaq: 2441.51 = down 5.1% for week
NO BOB BRINKER STOCK MARKET FOLLOWERS TODAY AND LYNN AGREED WITH THEM: There were several callers who said they had lost a lot of money in the stock market. And many who said they no longer invest in the stock market. To name a few: Patrick from Cupertino, California; Charles from Berkeley; Dennis from Alaska; John from Homer Glen, Chicago; Mike from Albany, Oregon and Peter from California. Even Lynn said she had lost a lot of her 401K in the stock market.
Honey EC: Not one of those callers would have been allowed on the air if Bob Brinker was hosting the program today, but I got the feeling that Lynn was having to work at getting callers. Perhaps because of it being a holiday weekend.
BIG FIRMS MAKING PROFITS AND BUYING BACK STOCK. Lynn said: "Big firms are so sure of hitting their profit targets, they're buying their own stock back at a faster pace than they're spending on plants or infrastructure.....Pfizer is buying 5 billion dollars of its own stock back. That doesn't do a whole lot for hiring, and it doesn't do a heck of a lot for shareholders who buy and hold. But it sure makes top management happy because with fewer shares in circulation, it's easier for top execs to hit their profit targets and collect those big bonuses."
SCANDALS SCARE OFF STOCK MARKET INVESTORS AND FROST LYNN'S CUPCAKES...Lynn said: "My question is, do these kinds of scandals (MF Global) make you lose faith in the market? Do you feel nervous about investing in stock now?......Should there be criminal or civil charges filed....From my perspective, this frosts my cupcakes....This should not be happening, not at all....I just don't know when we are going to learn. It seems there's a scandal a month. Every time I come and substitute for Bob, it feels as though I have a new scandal for you. And I'm not trying to scare you off of the market.....I am not someone who believes in nanny-government, but there has been so many transgressions. I mean, it just seems that we've got to have a stronger hand in government. But the minute we try to take a stronger hand, someone in congress says we're going to cut the budget or they push-back on the bill and try to change it."
EXTREMELY PAINFUL FOR LYNN AND BOB.... Mick from Oregon, said: "I think that people are foolish for being in the stock market. I think a big problem we have in our country now is because of the stock market and I think what it does is it kills small business."
Lynn replied: "Do you know how hard that is for me to swallow and I don't mean that it is wrong. I mean, here we are money talk, you know, we talk about investing, about growing our corporations and our own savings. This has been extremely painful for Bob and me. Here we are. We're trying to help people grow their money. (
Mike interjected: "There's other ways to grow your money.")
Lynn continued: "I think you're right....Just plain saving helps too."
Honey EC: I replayed that three times to be certain that I heard Lynn correctly when she said, "This has been extremely painful for Bob and me." If you want to listen to it, it's about 29 minutes into the second hour. You can download the program from KGO810 radio archives for the next seven days.
If we take Lynn at her word, then we have to believe that Bob has said to her that these stock market corrections, that he is so cavalier about with callers, cause him "extreme pain." If that is true, then he regularly lies to Moneytalk audience and even Marketimer subscribers. He has said nothing about pain on Moneytalk or in Marketimer.
As a matter of fact, in the November Marketimer, Brinker compared the "waterfall phase" of 2011 (closing low 1119.46) to the "waterfall phase" of 1998 (closing low 957.28). Then he compared the "final test" of the 1998 (closing low 959.44) to the "final test" of the October 2011 (closing low 1099.23) and pointed out that both led to "relief rallies." So far, the S&P has not dropped below what he said was the 2011 "final test" closing low. Matter of fact, it hasn't quite dropped to his September 22nd "attractive for purchase" level of S&P 1129 -- yet!
Just last month on Moneytalk, Bob made it clear that "teenage corrections" were not anything he was worried about. This is from my October 23rd show summary,
Bob said: "Bill, here's the acid test for you. If you do not have the stomach for the volatility that is inherent in being in the stock market, then you really have to ask yourself what in the world are you doing in the stock market. Because if the stock market through it's fluctuations, and certainly we had a correction in 2011 and we had a correction in 2010, and both of them went into the teenage category. If it's something that's just too much for you to bear, you need to ask yourself why are you bothering with it at all."
So my question to Lynn would be, do you ever actually listen to Bob Brinker when he hosts Moneytalk? Have you ever read a copy of Marketimer?
My question to Bob would be, do you actually listen to Lynn Jimenez when she fills in for you? If so, you are certainly not showing any consideration for your listeners by having a fill-in that might actually scare them out of the market. You had some very strong words for those recession bears for (according to you) scaring people out of the market. And the truth is lots of people have lost money while you are busy issuing new buy signals and recommending staying fully invested like your model portfolios. Your model portfolios are all down for the year. And worse yet, stock model portfolios one and two are still underwater from the all-time-high in 2007.
Lynn said she reads seven newspapers a day and recommended that investors read Bloomberg's Business Week, the Wall Street Journal and these online websites: Seeking Alpha, AOL Blogging Stocks, Herb Greenberg's CNBC Market Blog and the New York Times DealBook and 24-7 WallSt and Calculated Risk.
More of Lynn's topics of the day:
* MF Global bankruptcy scandal (Lynn claimed that Jon Corzine declined his $9 million severance pay.)
* Will you have to work to age 80 before you retire.
* How to take deductions for a home office (second hour guest, Jan Zobel, San Francisco-Oakland tax preparer) .
* How to give your money away (third hour guest, Patrick Rooney, University of Indiana).
Dixiegeezer, who due to health problems, has not been able to go on photographic jaunts, sent this picture with these comments: "I drove over to Lakeland, Fl where the swans are….about 50-70 on this lake….along with geese and many duck." Click picture to enlarge and see the beautiful colors:
