.
"As Marketimer begins its 23rd year, the Marketimer stock market timing model stand in positive territory. This suggests that the risk of a cyclical bear market decline in excess of 20% is not likely to materialize anytime soon......the S&P 500 Index should be able to achieve a price level into the 1600's range this year.......We continue to rate the market attractive for purchase on any weakness into the S&P 500 Index mid-1400's range."
After the stock market headed south about a week after Brinker wrote those quotes, he basically said, oops, I didn't expect that, and discarded the mid-1400's gift horse.
.
However, he soon found a new bottom and issued a new "attractive for purchase" buy level of "low-1300's" in February, 2008, and he's been bullish ever since -- believing that the market successfully tested the January lows in March and was on an uptrend.
.
On Moneytalk, May 31, 2008, Bob Brinker said: “……..And probably a lot of those people got scared out near the correction lows. The initial correction low in January, which was successfully tested in mid-March, before the market reversed and resumed its uptrend. And basically, if you were to total up all of the accomplishments of the Cassandras, that would be it – that they scared people out of the market during a stock market correction in the first quarter………..Because they have been unable to present any evidence of a recession."
.
During this whole downward slide into bear market territory, Brinker talked about the price of oil, but only from the standpoint of it being deflationary rather than inflationary. He never once made any claim that the increases in oil price would directly affect the stock market until the first week in June when the market slide continued and appeared very likely headed for bear territory. That amounts to a big "oops" for Bob Brinker because he has repeatedly said that his timing model saw no 20% bear market declines "on the radar" in future months and his Model Portfolios have remained fully invested.
.
So what has Brinker done about this "oops"? On Moneytalk, beginning the first week in June, Brinker began laying the foundation for his port-of-last-resort -- the famous "exogenous event" that he has always had in place for a time when all of his market-timing parameters failed and the goal-post couldn't be moved any further out. The "exogenous event" is that he claims there is NOW a "direct correlation" between the stock market and the price of oil. And astonishingly, he said that "only a fool" would try to predict the future price of oil.
.
On Moneytalk last Saturday, Brinker claimed that he had been talking about this "direct correlation" and "wildcard" for some time. That is blatantly misleading. He only began talking about it after he realized the stock market was headed down instead of up again -- as he has been claiming it would since the so-called "successful test" in March 2008.
.
The record is there in my Moneytalk Summaries. Brinker never once connected the price of oil with the stock market before the first week in June, as he is now claiming he did. The Summaries include many of his quotes on the subject of energy prices -- and it just isn't there. If it had been said, I certainly would have reported it. I try to report everything that he says about the stock market -- and even when he says nothing about it. (Note: The first time Brinker mentioned the oil "wildcard" in Marketimer was in the July issue.)
.
Here's a great chart that shows the S&P 500 Index compared to the price of oil. It's fascinating to see that oil prices have grown steadily since Brinker's March 2003 all-in buy signal.
.
.
.
