Brinker & CNBC Not So Bullish Sounding These Days

We've read reports that Brinker did not say "dollar cost average" or give a new "all in buy level" in his latest Marketimer newsletter. I checked a current issue and can report that Brinker remains fully invested. Also, I was unable to find any mention of a new buy level or dollar cost average. In fact, in a mastery of understatement, Brinker writes "Clearly, the process of registering the final bottom in this bear market has been relentless, which has rendered our efforts to date unsuccessful."

Perhaps after calling bottoms all the way down, Brinker has given up!


This report was just posted by "lightwaves - Dryer sheet aficionado."

Bob Brinker now as negative as CNBC

Just heard some of Bob Brinker's Moneytalk show on the radio today. He sounded just like the commentators on CNBC. Bitching and moaning about Obama, Geithner, Bernanke etc. Obama has been President for 6.5 weeks and he is supposed to have solved this disaster by now. This complaining coming from the fellow that publishes the MARKETTIMER newsletter who missed the biggest drop in the market in decades. These bitter "Masters of the Universe", with their gigantic egos, are looking for someone, anyone to blame for their total misreading of the economy.

Unlike all of these Wall Street egomaniacs, I will be patient and see what the Administration can do over the coming months.

This negativity could be good news. Bob Brinker recommended aggressive and moderate portfolios be 100% in stocks since the top. He did not take any profits or advise rebalancing his balanced model portfolio #3 which had become 66% equities at the top. He specifically told a caller to Moneytalk his advice was to not rebalance P3 despite its very aggressive asset allocation with 66% in stocks, well above its "neutral position" of 50% equities and 50% fixed income.

Brinker has called bottoms all the way down from the top at S&P1576 with a "gift horse buying opportunity" in the mid 1400s. The market would have to MORE THAN DOUBLE to get back to the 1400s where he bashed the "Cassandras" less than a year ago.

After missing the biggest bear market since the Great Depression, Brinker needs to admit he can't time the stock market and change the name of his newsletter.
Chart courtesy of Chartoftheday.com

This is the sort of "capitulation" by newsletter writers who ATTEMPT to time the market and the bulls on CNBC that Mark Hulbert says needs to happen before the market bottoms.

BTW, from reading Brinker's newsletter, it sounds like he's never heard of a "V-shaped bottom" or he places the odds of a V-shaped bottom at zero. That too can be good news as most on TV and radio now expect an "L-shaped recovery" which means we bottom eventually then recover very slowly.

Whatever the case, I've been using my cash reserves to SLOWLY nibble at the "early recovery" stocks I have in my newsletter explore portfolio. I took profits at the top to be 30% in cash. I have funds to buy at prices that could be once in a lifetime bargains for those of us with 20 to 50 year time frames. Some of what I bought last week is up already. See these slow to load emailed alerts copied to pdf:

• GE March 4 Buy Alert at $6.76
• Finisar Mar 3 Buy Alert at 24¢
  

My hope is EVERYONE is wrong and the market is down on excessive pessimism. That can lead to a snap-back rally that surprises everyone even before we see hints of an economic recovery.

I recommend a "core and explore" approach to investing. This means you place 80 to 95% of your assets in one of my core portfolios made up of index funds from Vanguard (or Fidelity). Then you invest the remaining 5 to 20% in my explore portfolio which is mostly invested in volatile, individual stocks. My newsletter stocks are volatile by design to add to overall returns via rebalancing (taking profits when the stocks are up and buying the stocks back when prices are down, but you need a good core portfolio to sleep well at night.

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)

Subscribe NOW and get the March 2009 Issue for FREE! !
(Your 1 year, 12 issue subscription will start with the May 2009 issue.)

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Hey Brinker, The Cassandras Were Right. You Were Wrong!

Less than a year ago the stock market rallied from the low 1300s to its 200 day moving average around 1400 just before rolling over and falling over 50% into the 600s. Brinker bashed the bears as "Cassandras" with one of his rants that makes him such a great entertainer.

Brinker said at the end of May, 2008:

“So what we have here basically, is an example of false prophets and it’s sad. And the reason it’s sad is the damage done. Think of the people that are looking today at the market, S&P at 1400 and they’ve been scared out of the market in the first quarter by these bears………It’s just amazing and yet these people are out there, and these people are not happy, I’m sure, to find themselves out of a rising market since March. To find themselves looking for ever lower prices when in fact we’ve had the opposite.

Brinker thought those of us who warned the economy was slipping into a recession were wrong. He called us Cassandras. Brinker said:

“What we have right in here now is evidence that the Cassandras, who earlier this year, were telling us we were in recession – right now they’ve basically – well I’ll be kind, basically, they look like fools right now. Because all that they’ve accomplished with their talk about recession…………all that they have to show for their efforts is that they scared the people who listened to them out of the stock market this past winter……….”

Here is the article I did with my friends at ECRI in March 2008:

ECRI Calls it "A Recession of Choice"

Brinker was clear he thought the market was coming back from a correction and anyone who sold were fooled by the bears:

“……..And probably a lot of those people got scared out near the correction lows. The initial correction low in January, which was successfully tested in mid-March, before the market reversed and resumed its uptrend. And basically, if you were to total up all of the accomplishments of the Cassandras, that would be it – that they scared people out of the market during a stock market correction in the first quarter………..Because they have been unable to present any evidence of a recession."

Here is the Full Report of Brinker's Cassandra Rant

Brinker is quick to pat himself on the back when one of his lucky guesses (or market timing calls) turns out to be correct but he goes into hiding when he is wrong. Brinker needs to own up on the radio and explain to his audience

• why he was so very wrong about the economy
• why his timing model gave a rare "gift horse buying opportunity" near the very top before the worst bear market since the Great Depression, so far.
• What he would change to his timing model to make it work again

or be truthful and explain

• Why trying to time the stock market is a fools' game.

I also think he owes some of us who warned of a recession an apology, but I am not holding my breath for any of this.