Bob Brinker and Bob Brinker

Bob Brinker and Bob Brinker. How can you tell which one is the talk show host now that the son no longer makes any effort to distinguish himself from the publisher of Marketimer -- host of Moneytalk? This problem did not exist when "Jr" was working as a computer technician and had no desire to follow in Daddy's footsteps. From my files (and there are more):

To: Greg Luke
who wrote ()11/30/1997
4:08:00 PM

From: Bob Brinker, Jr. of xxxxx

Greg -

I truly apologize for the confusion. I am not Bob Sr. I am Bob Jr. This has happened on occasion before and I NEVER attempt to misrepresent myself as Bob Sr. From now on, I will always sign my name as bob jr. in hopes of avoiding future confusion. FWIW (For what its worth) I would not be surprised if Bob Sr. read your note to me anyway!

thanks - bob jr!

My, my, my, what a difference a few years and a career change made with "Bob Jr." Now "misrepresenting" himself seems to be quite okay. He said it was something he'd never do before he started writing a newsletter. Now he posts on his fixed income website as simply Bob Brinker -- this from yesterday: ["Posted on December 15th, 2009 by Bob Brinker"]. And he posts on Twitter several times a day as "Bob Brinker." (The host of Moneytalk has a Twitter account as "Brinkerbob" but never posts!) Confused yet? Well, don't be fooled....

December 14th, Barron's published an article wherein the author talked about "Bob Brinker," but did not clarify which one she was talking about. This was called to my attention when these comments were sent to this blog here: [LINK]

Anonymous said...

there was an article mentioning Bob Brinker in the 14 December Barron's.
The article did not clarify which Bob Brinker.

December 14, 2009 2:02 PM

Later, "Anonymous" sent a link where the article is available to non-subscribers through a Google search. "Social Investing Doesn't Quite Click - Electronic Investor by Theresa W. Carey.

Here are some excerpts:

"It was on Twitter, where one of the people I follow helped me put it all together. Bob Brinker, author of The Brinker Fixed Income Advisor newsletter (brinkeradvisor.com) tweeted, "Both Covestor and kaChing are so close to a great product -- but just miss it. Wonder who gets it right first. Big market for the winner." I called Brinker and we talked over our issues with both sites.

Brinker is a potential genius on kaChing, but says he isn't likely to participate because he doesn't want all of his recommendations to be public. Brinker finds the idea of having Covestor or kaChing act as the custodian for his customers' funds very appealing for legal and regulatory reasons. Yet he'd prefer they were set up so that only people paying to invest with him could see what he's doing in real time. Brinker says, "I understand the need for the clarity, but I don't think someone who isn't paying me should know what I'm doing."


Did Theresa Carey, writing for Barrons, know that she was writing about the son of the Bob Brinker who hosts Moneytalk? She sure didn't make that clear one way or the other, just as neither one of the Bob Brinker's make that clear anymore.

A lot of Moneytalk callers indicate that they believe that the host publishes the fixed income newsletter as well as Marketimer. They thank him for "both" of his newsletters. Brinker has never explained that it is his son's newsletter, and ads are often run on the program immediately after Brinker speaks.

Theresa Carey said: "Brinker is a potential genius on kaChing, but says he isn't likely to participate because he doesn't want all of his recommendations to be public."

"Genius?" ROFLOL! What kind of genius did it take to lose money in a fixed Income newsletter last year during a good bond market? What kind of genius did it take to under-perform a bond index fund? And more importantly, on what does she base her opinion of his "trading skills"? His name? Did she think she was talking to the host of Moneytalk-- publisher of Marketimer?

According to Hulbert Financial Digest:

Bob Brinker's (formerly known as Bob Brinker Jr) Fixed Income Advisor:
* model portfolio #1 lost 21.7% last year.
* model portfolio #2 lost 11.5% last year.
* model portfolio #3 lost 5.2% last year.
* Vanguard Total Bond Index Fund +5.1% last year.
* Vanguard Total Bond Market Fund [VBMFX] +5.05% last year

You will not find that (or any) one-year data on Bob Brinker's (Jr) newsletter website. Instead, you will find some very good numbers for this year that he now gives on a monthly basis -- returns that are largely due to a 25% weighting of Vanguard High Yield Fund (which has recovered a lot of 2008 losses this year) in two of his model portfolios.

One might easily conclude that if Bob Brinker (jr) revealed his 2007- 2008 performance returns on his website that it would not be so easy to deceive any shark bait in his father's large national radio audience into paying good money for a newsletter that underperformed GNMAs and Total Bond Market over the past 3 years. Kirk Lindstrom shows Bob Brinker's (jr) 3 year returns in this article on his Bob Brinker Fan Club Blog

In this excerpt from the January 2009 Hulbert Financial Digest you can see the returns that he quotes for both "Brinker" newsletters. You may wonder why Mark Hulbert immediately began coverage of (the Jr) Bob Brinker's fixed income newsletter when it had no track record. I wondered for an instant and concluded that Mark Hulbert is in the tank for the Brinker name. Then I wondered why he was in the tank for the Brinker name.....

Also, Hulbert shows that the Marketimer balanced Model Portfolio III lost 18.1% in 2008. That is FALSE! That portfolio lost 23.9% in 2008. Hulbert was told about this error in an email and his reply was that he makes changes if he wants to.....Yep, that's it folks, believe it or not. Enlarge to read:

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