Mohan and All:
I looked at my previous post to you and saw that I had failed to proofread. "Proceeding" should be read "preceeding" and "1998" should read "1988." Add to that the garbled nature of the sentence, and you have every reason to believe that I may have been PWI (posting while intoxicated).
I have to disagree with you on Bob's reading of the market. I cannot recall the conversation you mentioned at all so I cannot comment on that directly. All I can say is that Bob's take on the market has always been crystal clear to me, irrespective of whether I had happened to be a newsletter subscriber or not at the time. Don't get me wrong, if you are not a newletter subscriber you may have to listen to much of the radio show to nail down his opinion in your mind. A time commitment is involved.
If you are looking for prognostications like the "Dow will hit 10,000 by the end of the year" or "20,000 by 2,000" you are looking in the wrong place. In my strong opinion, these pronouncements are made only by those seeking to get media attention and are totally worthless. Bob, for whatever reason, does not seek media attention which lends to his credibility in my eyes. Moreover, his market projections take into consideration the fact that the outlook for the market can only be measured in the short term because it is always subject to change. If one is looking for a guru to lead one to the promised land with promises of a soaring stock market, one had better look elsewhere.
To paraphrase a favorite author of mine, it does not matter whether it is a bull market or a bear market, it only matters if your call is right. Everything flows from that statement. You see once that decision is made, everything else falls out of your control if measured in the short term. If the S & P remains flat because of reduced earnings expectations or the concerns over inflation or, alternatively, if people bid up stocks because of their own excitement over the prospects of equities, that is all beyond my control so I try not to worry about it so long as I am right (Bob's opinion plays a key role here) about the kind of market we are in.
This leads to a very important point -- one of the top ten rules of life I follow. I do not worry about things I have little if any control over. It is wasted effort and time is limited here. So I do not worry if Bob decides to retire. If he does, I will miss him greatly but I know he will have made the right decision for himself and he certainly deserves happiness. I will just have to deal with it like anything else in life. I will not go into the night pleading like an addict to give me more of what I need to make me happy for my own selfish reasons. Moreover, I do not worry if my newsletter is received after Bob's sell signal is made public. Finally, I do not worry about the market's reaction to Bob's sell signal. Why? I have no control over it so why bother. I would suggest that people who do spend an inordinate amount of time concerned over these issues may have a risk tolerance problem more than anything else.
This is not to say that there may not be an issue with the newsletter's first class mailing. I have never heard Bob address the issue of why this was his choice and would enjoy hearing his discussion but I will withold my opinion until I do hear it because I will give him the benefit of the doubt. However, I can imagine where the presence of a telephone hot line or a fax alert service would actually contribute to the improper dissemenation of proprietary material to the media. Just remember, journalists look to confirm their stories with more than one source. When the Garzarelli sell signal rumor was out, I remember the people at CNBC had confirmed the story through dialing up the hotline themslelves because Elaine was in media blackout. So any information transmission solution to subscribers must not only be more effective it must also not work to defeat the very purpose of why one chose it in the first place; otherwise, why bother with it and pay extra in the way of expense ( most likely) to boot. The law of unintended consequences can be brutal. Perhaps Bob, too, is guided by the principal of not worrying about things he has no control over. After all, he is not looking for more work and worrying about things he has no control over is just that!.
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