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Strategies & Market Trends : Bob Brinker: Market Savant & Radio Host
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To: Math Junkie who wrote (16679)9/2/2002 1:18:56 AM
From: geode00  Read Replies (1) of 42834
 
Not his less careful subscribers? Even if they haven't been misled? If you looked carefully? The distinction was lost?

Of course Brimelow is giving Brinker a pass and blaming his idiot subscribers. He doesn't use those words but he certainly makes it the point of his article IMO:

Forbes Newsletter Watch
Brinkermanship
Peter Brimelow, 01.22.02, 8:04 AM ET

NEW YORK - Bob Brinker's Marketimer is ranked as one of the few investment letters to beat the market over the last ten years, according to The Hulbert Financial Digest. So why has Brinker's letter recently incited a flurry of angry e-mails from subscribers?

Because hell hath no fury like investors misled. Even if they haven't been. The story is instructive.

Some 15 months ago, Brinker recommended buying Nasdaq 100 Trust (QQQ), the Nasdaq 100 exchange-traded-fund on the American Stock Exchange. But he did it in a peculiar way: On the front page of his letter, but not--if you looked carefully--in his model portfolio.

Brinker did state that this play should be indulged only if you wanted to catch a possible rally within a bear market. His calling of a primary bear market in January 2000--just before the Nasdaq peaked out above 5000--was the key reason that grateful subscribers had deified him. And he still believed that stocks were in a primary bear market. Brinker was considering a refinement, but presumably he wasn't as confident about the short-term move as he was about the bear market call.

The trade was disastrous. QQQ has fallen from over 80 to a recent 39.

Of course, this didn't affect Brinker's overall performance, because the trade was never part of his model portfolio. But this distinction was lost on a lot of his followers. Mark Hulbert reports that he is being bombarded with angry e-mails from investors because he continues to give Brinker a good rating on his model portfolio.

What is the moral of this story?

Investment letter gurus--even those with syndicated radio shows--can make mistakes. And that objective monitoring has changed the investment letter world. At one time, investment letters notoriously made ambiguous recommendations and took credit for only the best performers. Objective monitoring like Hulbert's holds them accountable. In this case it benefited Brinker, but not his less careful subscribers.

forbes.com
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