Long-time Brinker expert, InvesTing, comments on my Moneytalk Summary and Bob Brinker's latest market-timing advice.
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Another reason I see people who have stuck their neck out defending Brinker have changed to bragging on his fund picking ability as a buy and holder was his flip flop this last weekend I saw on Honey's Blog.
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If I read it right Brinker took a call from someone who thought it might be wise to sell now and buy back next year at lower prices.
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Brinker seemed to get his britches in a wad and took great exception to this guy's marketiming idea.
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Strangely he said that unless the guy knew with absolute certainty where the market would be in one year it was a dumb idea. He seemed to allude to the fact that anyone predicting what the market would be doing a year from now was pure guess or speculation.
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Just looking at Honey's summary; Brinker gave the guy the bottomline reason that marketiming pretty much sucks as an investment strategy and why Brinker I believe is a buy and hold forever guy these days who will never go to 100% cash EVER.
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Now it seems Brinker is really having a hard time keeping his stories straight. I recall he claimed last fall when the market was at the highs that his prediction was that we would be in the mid 1600s and all time highs this year. OOPS.
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With the market off considerably he simply (like he did with UTEK and the QQQs) changed the time frame for his new all time highs and 1600s prediction to 2009.
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Yet he alluded to the caller that making such predictions were stupid unless you could know with absolute certainty he seemed to tell the caller you should be a buy and holder becasue he said you might have to buy the market at higher prices.
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Huh? Isn't that what Professor Malkiel said? Isn't that what all legitimate academic studies of marketiming schemes have come up with? The future is unknowable and so much so in the world of equity investing to make marketiming unsuccessful.
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So in just the last few months we have the same person Bob Brinker.
2) Claiming we would have new all time highs next year instead of this year
3) On May 31 2008, claiming the lows were in during march 2008 and it was clear sailing. Said those that were bearish should be embarassed and hammered them with insults like "false prophets" and "cassandras". (oil was at 130/brl S&P at 1410)
4) A couple weeks later with the market plummeting Brinker claimed that the equity market was totally dependent on oil price and nobody in the world could predict the price of oil
5) Within a month of Brinker's "false prophet" /Cassandra speech the market was in bear market territory. 6) The price of oil has plummeted about 15.00 a barrel from the price when Brinker was extremely bullish and the market was at 1410. The market now is at 1265.
If Bob Brinker says that the market is totally dependent on oil prices and nobody can predict oil prices, he has admitted there is no way he can ever predict the market--is that not the case?
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Bob Brinker has made predictions for a year out repeatedly, yet now seems to say that nobody can do that. So was it all a charade?
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The believers in Brinker have totally come off the reason to buy his marketiming newsletter to get marketiming advice, but now claim that his fund picks (though much of his portfolios are indexed) are the reason you buy the now buy and hold through bear markets advice.
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Does anyone else think that the "message" from the Brinker camp is in bad disarray?___InvesTing
