Bob Brinker, Jim Cramer & John Bogle: Trending Financial Advisors

Interest, on a relative basis, in Bob Brinker has steadily fallen over the past decade. It is interesting to compare interest in Brinker to others like Jim Cramer and John Bogle.

Bob Brinker

• 2004:  Interest level was 100
• 2014: Relative interest level is 9, down 91% in a decade. 

Jim Cramer   

• 2004:  Interest level was 4
• 2014: Relative interest level is 8, up 100% in a decade but down 92% since peaking in 2009
• Jim Cramer's "Action Alerts Plus" Charitable Trust Portfolio Performance  

Interest in Brinker and Cramer has fallen as I believe people realize they make more noise tooting their horns than actually helping people make money.

While interest in both Brinker and Cramer has fallen, Cramer received far more overall interest on Google over the last decade:

Jim Cramer's "Action Alerts Plus" Charitable Trust Portfolio Performance  

This shows interest in John "Jack" Bogle, founder of Vanguard group which I use to construct my core newsletter (Subscribe) portfolios, is down also.

John "Jack" Bogle

• 2004:  Interest level was 100
• 2014: Relative interest level is 40, down 60% 

Mark Cuban


Mark Zuckerberg

Snapshot for Jan 2004 to Jan 2014

When I used to run the "Investing and Personal Finance" section of Suite101 back in 2000, interest by the general public in investment topics was at a peak.  I remember my one topic about Bob Brinker would get more hits in a single day than this blog gets in a whole month. 

This general lack of interest is good news for contrarians.

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Intel Bob Brinker's Favorite Trading Stock - INTC

Does anyone remember "the old days" of the 1990s when Bob Brinker almost seemed frustrated with all the calls he got asking about Intel?  I could never figure out why he talked about it so much as his "favorite trading stock" but never had it in his newsletter, even as an "off the books" recommendation.

Why Intel is a Great Buy (while at $19.75).

When was the last time Bob Brinker took a call on Intel?  If you remember him taking a call about Intel in the past five years and what he said, please send me an email or post a comment with what he said.

To me, it seems missing the last TWO bear markets (remember we had a 20% intraday bear last year) has left Brinker deflated and much younger people, like Jim Cramer, with more energy have taken over the airwaves while Brinker's show was cut from 6 hours a weekend to 2 hours plus an hour of interviewing a guest on less popular radio stations.

Now and then I like to watch Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" show on CNBC to see what direction the wind is blowing.  That is, I think Cramer has a very entertaining show, especially if you like shouting and nobody taking the other side of his arguments, but it seems he echos what is "group think" that tells you "why" a stock is up or down, but does very little for making good, long-term decisions.  Sponsors who sell trading strategies love his show as it is easy to sell stocks and advice for stocks that are moving.

On his October 28, 2012 show during the "Lightning Round" he gave a bearish call on Intel:

Intel (INTC): "During the period when it was doubling and doubling again, I was behind it, but I have walked away from it. INTC has a good yield, but it has no product used by mobile to speak of, except their own, and that isn't doing so well. INTC is stuck in the world of the PC, so even though it has a good yield, I say 'don't buy."

Two weeks later, on November 11, 2012, I bought shares for my personal account at $20.06.  I also increased the "Auto buy at $19.75" price target in my newsletter for my "Explore Portfolio" to anything under $20.25 to take advantage of any price weakness.

Late last month, on November 21, 2012,during the "Lightning Round" Cramer again gave a bearish call on Intel:

Intel: "I’m not going to tell someone to sell this stock with a 4.6% yield. I am going to say wait until it goes to 4% for a bounce, because I do believe the yield will support it, but I don’t see any reason why you should own it. Sell it only after a bounce when the yield drops to 4%."

Yesterday I heard him trash talk Intel again on the "Morning Bell" show by saying Intel should have used their cash to buy Arm Holdings (ARMH) when Arm was cheap. I couldn't have disagreed more. That motivated me to write this article saying why I disagreed:

Why Intel is a Great Buy (while at $19.75).  Excerpts

• I bought my first shares if Intel in April 1993. At a split-adjusted price nearly 10 times what I paid for those shares, I believe Intel is a safer, more compelling buy now than it was in 1993.

Intel Since Inception

• Yesterday, Dec. 4, 2012, Intel announced the largest bond sale in its history to buy back stock. This offering was 20% larger than its $5 billion similar offering in September 2011.
• Wise investors will take advantage of low prices now to buy before tax loss selling ends and Intel uses these funds to repurchase shares.
• I think Intel did something far better than buying ARM. Intel invested billions in new semiconductor equipment to build products with better performance than anyone can get from ARM chips running on competing processes.
• Summary 
  Intel is a great buy here, especially under $20. Intel's valuation numbers will improve as they buy back shares with the funds from its just announced $6 billion bond offering. I took profits at $27.25 in February of this year with my newsletter explore portfolio, but now I am buying back. 
• I would not be surprised to be taking profits in some of the Intel stock I've bought recently right around the time when TV gurus jump on the Intel bandwagon again next year. Jump on now and get a good seat!

More Intel Charts and Quotes

Yesterday Intel closed at $19.85 and now it is over $20.

Was yesterday the last chance to buy Intel under $20?  I didn't mention in in my Seeking Alpha article, but I think Intel will probably build chips for Apple (AAPL) in the near future. By the time that is public knowledge (ie Intel chips showing up in tear-downs of Apple products) the stock will probably be $30 and then Cramer will change his tune.

More articles by Kirk Lindstrom at

• KirkLindstrom.com
• Seeking Alpha

Doug Kass Market Bottom Call

Jim Cramer & Debra Borchardt discuss the "Doug Kass Bottom Call" on RealMoney TV. I saw Doug say on CNBC TV that the market would make a generational bottom sometime in the next few days just two days before the S&P500 (S&P500 charts) hit 666.76 then rebound to 803.24, up 20.5%.

Jim tells Debra why we should listen to Doug:

"A guy who saw things coming when no one else did is a guy who may see things coming that no one else does."

Jim says listening to Kass is not the same as betting on the guy who got two blackjacks in a row in a card game.

Cramer says he has known Doug for 15 years and Doug has "always been short" so to have Doug say it is a "a generational bottom" is "shocking" and worth paying attention to.
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I prefer to leave market timing to the soothsayers while I beat the markets using "core and explore" investing.

After the markets bottomed in 1998, "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" gained 117% in 1999.

After the markets bottomed in 2002, "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" gained 77% in 2003.

I look for similar gains after this bear market bottoms . The gains have already started since my portfolio, though down from the peak since I don't pretend to time the markets, is ahead of the S&P500 for both 2008 and 2009.

Since 12/31/98 "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" is UP 94% vs. S&P500 DOWN 14% vs. NASDAQ down 28% vs. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) up 37% (All through 12/31/08) (More Info)

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Jim Cramer Says Sell Everything

Will Bob Brinker bash Jim Cramer's advice to sell everything this weekend or will he wait for the markets to recover sometime in the future for his typical "Bad News Bears" Bashing as reported in "Bob Brinker Fan Club Market Update - DOW down 19%?"

CNBC's mega-star Jim Cramer says "Sell Everything!" in "Cramer: The Way Ahead Is Down"

Click this chart courtesy of stockcharts.com to see the S&P500 vs. the price of oil ($WTIC) since last summer:

As of this minute, oil futures are trading at $142.57 and Gold is up $16 to $931.60 on fears of inflation.

Excerpts from Cramer's 06/27/08 - 07:11 AM EDT article:

"Sell everything. Nothing's working. Revisit when the prices are adjusted for a big recession, soaring inflation and a crushed consumer. Sell at 12,000 and come back at 10,000. Even better: short it. "

I wonder where Cramer gets off saying sell at 12,000 when the DOW was already 600 points lower and his article was posted today!

and

"The negativity coming into today's session is as thick as I can recall nearing most short-term bottoms. The issue is there is not enough fear out there. Despite the consensus, which obviously creates a need for lower prices before it is worth buying, there isn't a big spike in the VIX, there isn't a gap down, or a crescendo of selling. There isn't even any volume. So while the bearishness is real thick, the selling isn't."

and

"I think we lack a climax because we haven't had a climax, some session where people can say, "I don't care how much lower GM goes, I know it is a buy." Same with Citigroup. "

and

"All my indicators say that it is extremely dangerous to short here: oscillators, attitudes, polls. They haven't worked either -- or yet. I think the palpable gloom simply does one thing -- it'll be a stair-step down rather than a cascade, where you can make a little money when you are on the stair but then give it back on the next step, until we get to some level that better reflects a GM bankruptcy or a Citigroup collapse, one or the other, or both."

Market Summary:

.DJIA = 11,379.73 -73.69 @ 1:00 pm EST
.NASDAQ = 2,308.05 -13.32 @ 1:00 pm EST
.S&P500 = 1,280.24 -2.91 @ 1:00 pm EST

Who is right? Who will be right? Discuss both men at our facebook discussion forums for:

Bob Brinker and Jim Cramer

.

Jim Cramer says "Financials Can Be Bought Now"

Where is Bob Brinker? Jim Cramer just came on TV (Noon PST, January 30, 2008) and said with today's 0.50% rate cut by the Fed after cutting 0.75% last week, Financials (Citigroup, XLF, etc.) can be bought here as the fed "gets it" and "all is forgiven." Bond Guru Bill Gross of Pimco followed and took a bow for predicting on National TV and on his web site that the Fed would cut rates to 3.0% in 2008. I can vouch for that as I saw and read Bill Gross predict the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee would need to cut rates to 3.0%. Bill gets high kudos from me as he did this without ranting and raving about Ben Bernanke like the other two did.



Has Bob Brinker said anything about the markets or sent any special buy bulletins of late? If I missed any announcements by Brinker about finding that bottom he was looking when the S&P500 was at 1325, please send me an email or post about it on our "Bob Brinker Discussion Forum" at Facebook's "Investing for the Long Term."

For Brinker's sake, I hope he didn't switch from "Lump Sum in Mid 1400's" to "Dollar Cost Average until I identify a bottom" nearly to the day the market bottomed!

Only question is why wait for Jim Cramer or Bob Brinker? I already bought financials for my newsletter and personal account. Citigroup currently at $29 yields 4.60%, more than you will get at Vanguard's money fund after they cut rates and more than many CDs will pay once banks start to lower rates. XLF at $28.64 yields 3.66%. Why wait for Brinker or Cramer to tell you how to invest?

==> High Yield CDs

See:

• Jim Cramer's Rant with Erin Burnett: "Cramer Meltdown Video"
  
• Monthly Chart & Fed Fund Rate Cut Suggests The Bottom Is In

==> High Yield CDs <==

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