It does seem to me that Brinker's individual stock picks are somewhat hit or miss. When they hit, they hit big, but they aren't all hits. And UTEK is not the only semiconductor equipment stock he missed on. He bailed on Ontrak when Lam took them over, which turned out to be a blunder in the long run. I guess he didn't have enough faith in James Bagley. On the other hand, I can just imagine the heat he would have taken while Lam was under $10. But why he didn't put the "big four", AMAT, KLAC, NVLS, and TER, in his newsletter, when he was recommending on the air that people dollar-cost-average into them, I'll never figure out. Besides the fact that large cap semi equips recover from a slowdown sooner than small cap ones, with the large cap ones he wouldn't have had to worry about his subscribers owning a disproportionate percentage of the shares outstanding.
Of course, we would do well to remember that no one's individual stock picks are all hits, and that it would take an awful lot of UTEKs to undo the gains from MSFT and VOD.
A key point for me is that, after doing it my way for the past five years, and watching his portfolios do better than I have, with a LOT less risk, I finally decided to do things his way. Of course, part of this was a personal decision. As I was totaling up my portfolio in preparation for adjusting my asset allocation, I liked what I saw, and decided that I would NOT like to give a significant portion of it back. That makes it a lot easier to let the market press ever onward and upwards without me if it chooses to do so. And the fact that I will still participate in any upside, while significantly limiting my downside, helps a lot too. If the market goes up 10%, I make 7. Of course, if the market goes up 20, then I only make 11. But it's a price I'm willing to pay for peace of mind. |
