Official Bear Market

Today the S&P 500 and Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX and its ETF VTI) entered official bear markets.

These are painful, but if you raised cash following my newsletter, then you have plenty of cash to go shopping during the Holiday Sales!

An example of some of my sell alerts

The infamous FAANG stocks (table below) remind me of the "Nifty Fifty" in many ways.

On a closing basis, you could stretch the truth and say we haven't hit an "official bear market" yet since the S&P 500 is "only down 19.8%.  But if you round to zero decimal places then the S&P 500 is down 20%.  

 Bob Brinker has taught for decades, what really matters is the Total Stock Market index (VTSMX) and that as well into a bear market due to the small cap stocks getting hit harder than the large cap stocks.

Discuss this article on my "Investing for the Long Term" Facebook Group here.

Kirk Lindstrom's Investment Letter

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New Article 12/26/18: Market Down 20%, Fear is Everywhere & President Trump Says a Great Opportunity to Buy

Bulletin, Buy Alert and Market Timer Warnings

First, a market update for today:
(Posted earlier today on Facebook)

Market Update - Special Bulletins and such nonsense.

I heard some scammer who has been a 100% in stocks, fully invested, permabull since 2003 was out today with a "buy signal."

He tried the same crap in late 2007 and 2008 with buys all the way down from 1500s to 800s  with what seemed like a new buy signal every 100 points! 

Finally he gave up when the market was in the 700s and 600s... only to brag about his "buy signals" once the markets eventually got higher than his last buy signal.

The nerve of some people! Now if you had taken profits first like some of us do... then these buy signals can be beneficial.

Kirk Lindstrom's Investment Letter

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Stock Market Update After Major Sell-off - Buying & Selling Opportunities

What a month for the bears!  All indexes but the Nasdaq are down for the year.

Hopefully you took some cash out of the markets near the highs to use to buy near the lows.

Keep checking back as I add sentiment charts over the weekend.

Here is a look at the markets on a closing basis.  All are down between 8.0% and 14.8% from their peak values!

Markets at a Glance courtesy of WSJ

Here are the markets showing intraday values.  With high speed computer trading, I believe intraday values are far more important than closing values.  One reason is you can have a major reversal during a day when markets hit resistance points like their 50 and 200 day moving averages or round numbers like $25 or "down 20% from a peak."

 

Hopefully you took some profits when the markets were up so you can take advantage now that they are much lower and the level of fear is intense!

This "Fear and Greed vs. the S&P 500 Sentiment Chart" shows now is a good time to be putting some cash back to work.

This are some of the "sell alerts" I sent my newsletter subscribers near the top.

This is one of my recent "buy alerts" I sent my newsletter subscribers this week.

As Bob Brinker used to say 20 years ago in his younger days "Intel is a great trading stock."

More Intel Charts

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Kirk Lindstrom's Investment Letter

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Nov. 1, 2018 Update 

2CS-p Sentiment Indicator

More about 2CS 

• 2CS & CPC Charts Still Show High Fear Levels

Keep checking back as I add more charts over the weekend.

Send me an email if you have any chart requests

...

Moneytalk to End - Last Moneytalk Broadcast Today

It looks like Bob Brinker's Moneytalk radio show is finished.

I got this Google Alert on Friday:

"ILoveYoga" reported on www.early-retirement.org that today was the last podcast for his "Moneytalk on Demand" podcast service. 

That is not surprising.   Few listen to the FREE Moneytalk podcasts:

What a change from 20 years ago!  

I hosted a "Bob Brinker Discussion Forum" back when I was trying to do at Suite101 what Facebook became.  At the peak of Brinker's popularity, I believe I was getting over 20,000 hits a day to discuss Bob Brinker's recommendation to buy QQQ at the top of the internet bubble.  

Now not 500 will listen to a free podcast in the archive!  

 

Kirk Lindstrom's Investment Letter

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This link to free podcasts Free Bob Brinker Podcasts shows that only 366 people have listened to any of his 9/23/18 Moneytalk podcast, even after I sent it to several thousand on my Brinker Fan Club mailing list.  I was going to send it to the other half  of my email list this week but there was so little interest that I may not get to it.

and more recently

10/1/18 Update:  From Radio-online.com

As such, I changed the title from " Moneytalk to End - Last Moneytalk On Demand" to "Moneytalk to End - Last Moneytalk Broadcast Today."

Bob Brinker Market Advice & Marketimer Special Bulletin

This article gives a short update on the stock market followed by an update of Bob Brinker's May investment advice.

Email Alerts for New Articles:  Click "Follow" on the right hand side of this blog and it  (Google Blogger) should send you a FREE alert via email when I publish a new article here.  I am pretty sure it does not send email alerts when I make updates to the articles so I will try to write "check back" if I plan to add to the article.  

Market Update:  The four major US stock indexes I track are all in the green year-to-date (YTD) with the Nasdaq up 7.6% and the Dow only up 0.7%.

This year the market as measured by the S&P 500 had its fourth largest correction of 12% since the secular bull market began in March of 2009.  It would be very bullish if the S&P 500 corrects down to the falling upper dashed green support line then quickly reverses.   

Likewise, it would be very bearish for it to drop below the lower dashed green support line where filling the gap at 20% off the record high would be highly probable. 

Bob Brinker remains firmly in the Bull Camp:

• Bob Brinker did not issue a "Special Bulletin" to take profits before that correction nor did he issue a bulletin to buy when the market was down 12%.
• Since March 2003, Bob Brinker has had his portfolios one and two 100% in equity mutual funds.  See Bob Brinker's Asset Allocation History.
• Brinker continues to favor dollar cost averaging new money into the market "especially during periods of weakness" which he has not defined.
• Brinker says if a "Marketimer buy signal develops" between his monthly newsletters, then he will "post a Special Subscriber Message for access" at his website.   How old fashioned is that?  I send email alerts the same day, usually within hours when I buy or sell something in my portfolio.  Below my newsletter ad is an example.
• Reading between the lines, the fact Brinker only talks about a special message for a "Buy Signal" between monthly newsletters is a clear indication he's firmly in the Bull camp.

Twenty years ago the market was down a similar 10% and Brinker talked extensively about it on his show and in the newsletter.  He even issued a special buy signal just before it fell another 10% to make an official intraday bear market correction.  
Many of my online friends who follow the markets and especially Brinker lost faith in how he handled this miss. That is he didn't discuss why he was wrong or what he learned. 
My guess is the markets look similar today... they've have a huge run up but are not over valued like they were in 2000 but they are highly valued on a PE ratio basis as you can see in my table in my Brinker article "Bob Brinker Stock Market Targets."

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More articles:

• Bob Brinker Stock Market Targets
• Beware of Annuities
• Winning the Zigs, losing on the Zags - Why small investors usually do poorly
• Make Money In A Flat Market With Asset Allocation & Market Volatility