Posted April 10, 2010....Bob Brinker was preempted on KGO810 San Francisco for the yearly Leukemia Curathon. Sunday, it was reported that KGO raised over a million dollars for Leukemia research. Kudos to them.
Points Bob Brinker made this weekend:
* Bob Brinker said: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average closing out the week at 10, 997. That is a new cyclical bull market recovery high for the Dow. The S&P 500 Index also closing the week at a new cyclical bull market recovery closing high of 1194....The total rate of return, including cash dividends, for the S&P 500 Index year-to-date, now stand at 7 1/2%."
* Interest rates remain very low.
* Inflation remains benign.
* Raising taxes is inevitable. They are already raising a new "healthcare" Medicare payroll tax for high earners. Now a value-added tax may be next:
* Brinker said: "Now the word comes that the Washington mucky-ta-mucks are studying a value-added tax.....which is gaining more and more support....Now we hear that the Congressional Budget Office is studying a new tax for the United States, called a value-added tax." [Value-added tax is added at each stage of production and can raise big money.]
* Annualized budget deficit is $1 1/2Trillion. Brinker said: "These are numbers that nobody could ever have conceived of years ago....It's 1 1/2Trillion we don't have."
* National debt at $12 1/2 Trillion. CBO forecasts it will be $20Trillion within a decade.
* Washington DC keeps spending so that they can then force increased taxes.
* If we want to remain the "greatest country in the world," we need to put people in office who will work to maintain the US triple-A rating.
Brinker did not have any guest-speakers this weekend.
Item of interest: BOB BRINKER'S SECULAR BEAR MEGATREND IS ON AGAIN.
In June, 2007, Bob Brinker stated that the secular bear megatrend that he said began in Year-2000 had ended the PRIOR year -- in June, 2006!
June, 2007 Marketimer, Brinker said: "In our view, the valuation based secular bear market that was established following the March, 2000 closing high for the S&P 500 index (1527.46) and following the January, 2000 closing high for the DJIA (11723), reached its conclusion on June 13, 2006 at the bottom of the mid-term off-presidential election year correction."
Brinker never mentioned the secular bear megatrend again until this month (And he never told Moneytalk listeners he said it ended):
April 5, 2010, Marketimer, Bob Brinker said: "The current secular bear megatrend began during the first quarter of Year 2000, and is now entering its eleventh year."
No doubt, Brinker had to declare the secular bear megatrend back on because even though his timing model missed the worst bear market since the Great Depression and he rode it down fully invested, he is now calling the current market a "cyclical bull market."
Of course, this opens up the possibility that he can convince people he will help them sidestep the next cyclical bear market. Very clever marketing tool and one that he used almost identically from 2000 to 2007 -- then the 2008-2009 megabear cut his portfolios in half!! [Honey's opinion: Thanks to Brinker working weekends on radio well past retirement age, he has re-grouped and is repeating what worked for him before -- some of it almost verbatim from years back.]
This is a view of Lighthouse Point that I took from the Santa Cruz Wharf. Click to enlarge:
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