Brinker Fixed Income Advisor Returns

The Bob Brinkers are advertising very impressive returns for the "Brinker Fixed Income Advisor" on their web site. (Click the image to see advertised returns.)

What they don't tell you is how poorly they did last year and how they have greatly under performed my advice until very recently to hold Vanguard's Total Bond fund (VBMFX) for your fixed income. (I recently sold ALL my bonds and bond funds that are not indexed to inflation and put the funds into investments that should do well in an environment of rising interest rates. Subscribe NOW to get my current advice for your "Core and explore" portfolio.)

This table showing the COMBINED returns for the past three years less a month tells "the rest of the story" as the late Paul Harvey used to say.

Brinker Fixed Income Advisor	2009 YTD (through Dec 1)	2008	2007	2007 to 2009 Combined
Model Portfolio 1	30.90%	(21.70%)	8.60%	11.3%
Model Portfolio 2	19.60%	(11.50%)	6.80%	13.0%
Model Portfolio 3	14.10%	(5.20%)	7.20%	16.0%
Vanguard Total Bond VBMFX	7.74%	5.05%	6.92%	21.0%
Vanguard GNMA Fund VFIIX	6.88%	7.22%	7.01%	22.6%
Retirement Advisor Model Portfolio #3	7.21%	3.73%	8.32%	20.5%

I also show the returns for our 100% fixed income portfolio in "The Retirement Advisor." We have slightly under performed the total bond fund. Our returns are lower by half a percent because we have inflation protection via a TIPS fund that hurt our 2008 returns AND we recently moved to safer CDs for our long-term fixed income allocation to reduce the risk of net asset value declines should the Fed decide it needs to suddenly raise interest rates.

I can't find Brinker's returns by year listed anywhere on his web sites for ANY of his newsletters!!! What is up with that? Vanguard and I do it. What is he hiding? Call his show and ask why.

I show all my returns for "Kirk Lindstrom's Investment Letter" by year here.

We show our return data for "The Retirement Advisor" here.

The table showing Brinker's poor performance for the "Brinker Fixed Income Advisor" newsletter portfolios relative to a simple total bond index may explain why he hides that information.

Since 12/31/98 "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" is UP 158% (a double plus another 58% !) vs. the S&P500 UP at tiny 7.5% vs. NASDAQ UP at tiny 0.1% (All through 12/5/09) (More Info)

As of December 5, 2009, "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" is up 33.0% YTD vs. DJIA up 19.1% YTD

Subscribe NOW and get the December 2009 Issue for FREE! !
(Your 1 year, 12 issue subscription will start with next month's issue.)

More Info:

• Kirk's Two Investment Letters

Brinker Fixed Income Advisor Performance - 2008 Model Portfolio Returns

Below are the "Brinker Fixed Income Advisor" model portfolio returns for 2008 according to Mark Hulbert, editor of "Hulbert Financial Digest" a newsletter that rates other financial newsletters.

Brinker Fixed Income Advisor	2007 (note 1)	2008 (note 2)	Combined
Aggressive Portfolio	8.3%	(21.7%)	(15.2%)
Moderate Portfolio	6.8%	(11.5%)	(5.5%)
Conservative Portfolio	7.1%	(5.2%)	1.5%
The Retirement Advisor Conservative_Capital_Preservation_Portfolio (100% in Fixed Income - no Stocks) FREE=> SAMPLE Issue <==FREE	8.3%	+3.7%	+12.4%

Note 1: Brinker Fixed Income Advisor 2007 Returns from January 2008 issue of Hulbert Financial Digest "Long Term Performance Ranking"

Note 2: Brinker Fixed Income Advisor 2008 Returns from January 2009 issue of Hulbert Financial Digest "Long Term Performance Ranking"


I can not find portfolio returns listed on the "Brinker Fixed Income Advisor" web site. Given that every model portfolio lost money last year while the Total Bond Market was up over 5%, I can understand why the Brinker's might want to make their returns hard to find.

Please contact me if you have actual portfolio returns published by Brinker.

Bond BENCHMARK	2007	2008	Combined
VBMFX - Vanguard Total Bond Index Fund	6.92%	5.05%	12.32%

Note 3: Mark Hulbert says his returns may differ slightly from what Brinker reports. For example, he reports better 2008 model portfolio returns for "Bob Brinker's Marketimer" newsletter than Bob Brinker himself publishes.

Long Term Results that Speak for Themselves
Since 12/31/98 "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" is UP 227% (OVER a triple!)
vs. the S&P500 UP only 32% vs. NASDAQ UP only 27% (All through 3/31/11) 

In 2010, "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" gained 20.4% vs. the DJIA up 11.0%
In 2009, "Kirk's Newsletter Explore Portfolio" gained 33.5% vs. the DJIA up 18.8%

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