First, Brinker was blindsided by the "correction" in January; now he has kept his subscribers (and encouraged Moneytalk listeners to do the same) fully invested all the way down through a full-blown 20% bear market decline. Many are not happy.
Long-time Bob Brinker expert, who posts as "InvesTing," speculates as to how Bob Brinker will handle the fact that his new and improved timing model completely missed the current bear market. InvesTing wrote:
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"We know that when Brinker was 100% wrong in going to 100% cash and then roaming around less than fully invested in the 1988-1991 time frame was quickly hidden after being blamed on a 'bad model'. He claimed he made a new and improved version.
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Originally he claimed he had backtested the model and it worked like a charm on the market he screwed up.
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Later when a caller asked about his backtesting Brinker claimed he never backtested the new model and to do so knowing the results would be foolish. This by the way was the first time I knew besides being arrogant; he made stuff up as he went along and then forgot the line of bull he had said ....or changed it in the name of expedience.
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So he didn't handle his screwup well--left subscribers with more BS rather than leveling with them.
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When he said to buy QQQs in the 80s and then hold hold hold all the way down below 20s, he finally gave up and pretty much left them and never leveled with them about the disaster he wrought in the still open trade.
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Now Brinker is claiming we are in a bull market and is on record for 1600s right around the corner. Just a couple shows ago he was blasting those who were cautious on the market as "false prophets and cassandras".
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Now we are in a bear market and Brinker has never sent a sell signal--just blasted the bears recently and then a week ago claimed that the oil market might have an effect on stock prices. Shaazaaam, I think the false prophets and cassandra's figured that out a while ago.
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Does anyone think Brinker will come clean and admit that his model missed the bear market? Will he call this a "Petroleum based bear market that my model is not designed to call?"
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Will he pretend it did not happen?
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Will he claim he has to change the model again?
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Will he keep calling out numbers like a bingo announcer as the market continues to slip making my point obvioius to everyone that all that "gifthorsecrap" was just a parlor game.
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Dija always said that it was terribly important to keep people in the market to have Brinker yell out his Bingo numbers. I'd guess that is pretty much no longer operative."
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Here "InvesTing" writes about other bear markets that Brinker has missed:
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"Neither has Brinker (predicted a single bear market).
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87, Bullish and wildly so right before the 30% sell off in October.
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88-went to 100% cash claiming for the only time while making an asset allocation claim that he was bearish. There was no bear and the market was up 30% before he became fully invested again. Oddly some goobers and geezers took Brinker's mantra--"bullish since 91" or "bullish since the early 90s" as exceptional performance when in fact it was political spin to leave out the only time in his career he went to 100% cash and said flat out he was bearish.
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2000-went to 60% cash and screamed "I AM NOT BEARISH"--hard to have "predicted" a bear market when you tell people flat out you are not bearish and if you were you would go to 100% cash.
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Then never going to 100% cash Brinker indeed kept piling high flying tech into the mix reducing cash positions foolishly to do so. TEFQX was followed with taking up to half the remaining reserves and in the most shoddy bulletin I've ever heard of urged subscribers to buy 80 $ QQQs. So those following all of his advice through the worst bear market not only had over 70% in the market but also badly skewed toward the worst sector that has yet to recover. Brinker's QQQs are still down 50%.
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2008--Brinker has been wildly bullish since June 2007 when he in bizzare fashion announced the end of the secular bear market on June 16, 2006--never to explain such a idiotic premise. Brinker was even more bullish in his secular bull market in October 2007 at the very highs and was calling for mid 1600s by now.
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Brinker was never as cautious as he should have been on the housing or credit problems. The oil prices have been on a striaght pathway up for the entire time. Indeed rather than alibi for Brinker concerning energy prices, it is obvious that he was dismissing them as late as June 2008 with oil in the 130s he called those who were bearish on this market "false prophets and "cassandras" and lambasted them in the most tiresome and typiccal belligerant Brinker style.
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Brinker talks a good game--but that's it. All this timing ability is based on crap and spin and of course short memories and new subscribers. Being a rather obscure financial advisor really helps. He would be simply another joke if he was seriously covered by the finanical news.
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So go ahead and give Brinker another mulligan, he never gets it right and there is always a tiny fraction that will give him a pass and hang on, claiming this or that could not have been foreseen.
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That's the point that many goobers and geezers don't understand. There is always something that fits the "nobody predicted that". That's why Malkiel said whatever you do don't try market timing.
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Indeed to Brinker's credit he is primarily a buy and holder and unwilling after 88 to ever again go to 100% cash. If he truly started to try to predict bear markets it would likely be even worse. He was simply a buy and hope raging bull since 2003. It made too good a story with his spin claiming by innuendo to have taken all money out of the market in 2000 and returned to the market with all that cash intact in 2003. I warned Math even when Brinker was still claiming we were in a secular bear market that Brinker would never go to 100% cash and be bearish because it would mean he had to give up that BS story. I wuz right.
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Now "Queen" has given you the marketing "hope" of the Brinker babbling. If the bear doesn't last very long and the market goes to new highs in the forseeable future, Brinker will be back to bashing the bad news bears though they were right and claim that "we don't call energy induced bear markets".
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So Brinker again is, just like 87, 98, and with the QQQ fiasco in a "hold and hope" position --not based on modeling, fundamentals or anything else. Simply based on the position he is in and where he needs to be to sell newsletters."
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InvesTing continued: "Brinker saw the bear coming--knew he had not called it--had in fact made a totall a** out of himself just a week before with the "Cassandras" and "False Prophet" rant to bash the bears. So Brinker "took care of himself", began the "it's dependent upon oil" spin. It was too late for him to sell and of course he doesn't have a clue if the market will rebound like a coiled spring after he sells, so all he can do is "hang on", much like when the QQQs hit 50s, and hope.
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Indeed all that he cares about is how he can be absolved of blame for yet again missing with his marketiming hubris. None of this is to aid subscribers, only in his mind 'subscriptions'."
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"..........June was the worst month since 1929 - 79 years. Funny 1929 we were in a Depression but someone we are not even in a recession now.
July 7, 2008 5:04 AM
."If the S&P 500 manages to stay above the 1262 level on a closing basis, I am sure Bob will crow again that his model worked as it should have. Personally, I think we will get the bear on a closing basis. Stay tuned."
Well, it happened today. So we can put this 20% nonsense of Blinkers to bed and Blinker can't say he dodged a bear market any longer according to his own definition. Blinker's "market timing" is costing his subscribers and listeners dearly.
But as Bill Flenkenstein said:
'Bear marketology
There is no credence to the notion that "down 20% equals a bear market." (This is an urban legend, which I believe began somewhere on Bubblevision.) A 20% decline does not imply that we had a bear market and now it's over. This is just an expression of the bulls' desire to find a magic number, prompting cries of goodbye to all that.
Bear markets are periods when most stocks decline -- whether 18% or 40% -- and folks lose money. The size of the decline is not the arbiter of whether a bear market is under way. Before this bear market is over, the decline will be far worse than most think possible.'
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/GlobalEconomyWontBailOutTheUS.aspx
July 7, 2008 1:03 PM
S&P 500 is down over 10% since Brinker bashed the bad news bears first week of June.
"If you can't take a 10% correction, you should not be in the stock market".
How about a 20 pounder?
July 7, 2008 1:18 PM
OK, I'm officially joining the "Brinker got it wrong" bandwagon. Today the S&P 500 closed 20.0% below the October 9 high (1252/1565), so there's no definition remaining for bulls to hide behind. It's a bear market, and Marketimer rode it down all the way.
The bull is dead. Long live the bear!
July 7, 2008 3:22 PM
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