Mark Hubert: Bob Brinker Remains Bullish, Same as Last Year

According to newsletter tracker Mark Hulbert, Bob Brinker remains bullish for December 2008. In "Bruised but bullish" Mark writes:

Four of five newsletters on Honor Roll are bullish...

So it behooves us to pay attention to what they are saying.....

You might still object, on the grounds that this same exercise a year ago also reached a bullish conclusion, and yet the stock market is some 40% lower today.

It is a valid objection. Hulbert's methodology of following writers he thinks are the "best market timers" was 100% wrong this year.

See my discussion of Mark Hulbert's November 15, 2007 article: Bob Brinker Still Bullish According to Mark Hulbert where I reported:

"Bob Brinker remains bullish along with the other eight top market timers Mark tracks. The best news is the worst market timers are bearish."

and Mark reported:

"Bob Brinker's Marketimer: Bullish. In his most recent issue, which was published in early November (2007), editor Bob Brinker writes: "We continued to believe that there is no risk of a cyclical bear market (a decline of 20% or more as measured by the S&P 500 index) in the months ahead ... We expect the stock market to set a series of new record highs into next year." His model portfolios are fully invested."

As you know, Brinker followed this forecast up with a "gift horse buying opportunity" in the mid 1400s.

Click chart courtesy of Stockcharts.com for full size image

This is what Hulbert says now:

Bob Brinker's Marketimer. This newsletter makes it onto this year's honor roll even though editor Brinker last year did not expect the stock market to decline more than 20%. That he nevertheless remains on the Honor Roll is testament both to how good his market calls have been on other occasions over the past 18 years, as well as to the failure of most other newsletters to also anticipate the severity of the market's decline. He was in good company, in other words, and the Honor Roll is graded on the curve.

Brinker currently believes the stock market is in a perhaps extended bottoming process, and he therefore recommends that subscribers invest in the stock market on a dollar-cost-averaging basis. "We are aware that there is widespread fear that financial Armageddon is the likely outcome of the global financial crisis. We take the opposite view, and expect the stock market to record significant gains during the next major market uptrend. We continue to focus our efforts on the ongoing bottoming process that we regard as essential to establishing the level from which a sustainable market uptrend can occur. When we reach the point at which we can upgrade our current stock market view from dollar-cost-average to a renewed buy recommendation, we will do so."

Brinker has had a lot of practice calling these bottoms! With the market reecently up 20% off the recent low on more than one day, he missed one.

Click chart courtesy of Stockcharts.com for full size image

Not to worry about missing bottoms, Bob Brinker has been fully invested since March 2003 . He recommended against taking profits at the top so he has taken a round trip. The other market timers Hulbert follows must be putrid if Brinker's results are the best of the lot.

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