Bob Brinker certainly was correct when he said that he's a long-term investor. Brinker has made no changes to his model portfolio asset allocations since he returned his equity allocations to fully invested positions on March, 2003.
On the other hand, Brinker likes to brag about any shorter-term market-timing calls that he has made which were successful (while ignoring the flops).
July 1, 2010, Brinker finally got one right when he recommended S&P 500 Index as an outright-buy at 1030. That was the latest in a long line of Brinker's outright-buys from 2008-2009 that had flopped because the market kept dropping after he made them.
Now let's take a look at how Brinker's fully invested model portfolios did, beginning at the market's all-time-high, going down to the bear market bottom and back up to today.
Brinker's market "timing model" did not see the bear coming, or recognize it as it was happening. Therefore, he never raised any cash reserves before or during it (he issued repeated buy signals throughout the bear. See the chart below).
Portfolio I: October, 2007, stock market all-time high: $302,561...March, 2009 Megabear market bottom: $143,938...November, 2010: $259,036
Portfolio II: October, 2007, stock market all-time high: $241,994...March, 2009 Megabear market bottom: $119,105...November, 2010: $215,507
Portfolio III: October, 2007, stock market all-time high: $219,263...March, 2009 Megabear market bottom: $147,013...November, 2010: $216,010 (Portfolio III is a balanced portfolio, recommended for conservative investors.)
Currently, Brinker's market-timing advice is to dollar-cost-average new money. As of November 1st, his S&P target range is 1300 - 1350.
Chart showing all of Brinker's "outright buy" levels courtesy of Kirk Lindstrom. Please click to enlarge:
“We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good. Even now, Charlie (Munger) and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.”__Warren Buffet
Jenny, Bailey, Annie and Little Lucy enjoy the Doggie beach at West Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz.
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