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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Beware of Bob Brinker's Bond Fund Advice: DBLSX, FFHCX, MWLNX, OSTIX and VFIIX

BEWARE OF PEDDLERS OF FIXED INCOME ADVICE!!!!

In this Marketwatch article titled, "What to buy instead of bonds" Mark Hulbert says not everyone is recommending selling all your bonds.   He says Bob Brinker is still recommending bond funds:

"Bob Brinker, editor of Bob Brinker’s Marketimer — recommends that the average duration of your bond holdings be no longer than just 13 months. 

The four short-term bond funds he recommends are the DoubleLine Low Duration Fund DBLSX, with a 0.72% expense ratio, or $72 per $10,000 invested; the Fidelity Floating Rate High Income Fund FFHCX, with a 0.7% fee; the Metro West Low Duration Bond Fund MWLNX, with a 0.57% expense ratio; and the Osterweis Strategic Income Fund OSTIX, with a 0.91% fee. Their average current yield is 2.1%."

Look at the HUGE expense ratios for these funds!!!  These are not quality bonds backed by the US government like GNMAs or Treasuries either.  

You have to wonder why someone who talked the walk of low cost index funds for the past 15 or so years is now back to recommending expensive mutual funds where the expense ratio is a significant percentage of the max gain you can expect while the losses are unlimited due to possible defaults.  What is his motivation?

This goes against what I've recommended to my readers.   Last year I had ZERO bond exposure in my core portfolios which allowed me to be named "Bond Timer of the Year" for 2013.

• See "Timer Digest Market Timer of the Year Awards"

Last year, Bob Brinker's "Income Portfolio" lost 0.5% according to the January 2013 issue of "The Hulbert Financial Digest."   The newsletter he markets with his son when people don't want to buy a newsletter about stocks, The Fixed Income Advisor, didn't have a good 2013 either.

No More GNMA Bonds!

Brinker told a caller to his show this weekend he doesn't recommend Vanguard's GNMA fund, VFIIX, any more and doesn't have a replacement fund from "that fund family."  Could it be that Vanguard doesn't want to sell funds that are not great for their members?

Last year I had the "fixed income" part of my two "core portfolios" in a 100% safe, FDIC guaranteed money market fund that payed 0.85% for the year.  

• See Best Savings Account Rates to see who currently has the best rates.

Why is Brinker recommending these funds with huge expense ratios when you can get CDs and savings accounts with zero risk?

Is it because if he told his readers what I tell mine, use the CD tool at Vanguard to buy CDs for better return in IRAs than the safe money funds, the ONLY safe fixed investments these days, that he'd lose subscribers?

He is basically giving the fixed income people stock market risk but without the unlimited upside of stocks... Do you think the VCs in Silicon Valley or Warren Buffett are buying the funds he recommends with their cash?

Remember this is the guy who in 2000 told people to buy QQQ before it crashed  and TEFQX before the internet collapsed for what seemed a way to advertise he was hip and into what was making money as the NASDAQ soared after he said to reduce equity exposure in January 2000.

I would love to have a caller ask him point blank if he has 100% of his investments in what he recommends and if not, why and what is different.

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From "Timer Digest Market Timer of the Year Awards"