Truman,
Was in the car driving back from Baton Rouge yesterday and so got to listen to quite a bit of Brinker's show. His opening monologue about all the fanfare surrounding the Dow 8000 mark was entertaining at first, but got a bit tiresome after a couple of minutes. Sure, the media does make too much of a big deal over hitting certain numbers, i.e. 5000, 6000, 7000, etc., but I think a lot of it was in the vein of "look how far we've come--think back 15 yrs or so when the Dow was around 1200--you would've never dreamed you'd live to see an 8000 Dow," not some mass hysteria over a certain number.
I applaud him on his refusal to discuss particulars over his newsletter over the air. A two-bit promoter (do the words "Wade Cook" come to mind?) would've jumped all over those questions as an opportunity to shamelessly plug his books and/or newsletters. I think we have our good friend Lars to thank for that--I'm sure, when BB was reading this thread, as we have now established that he DOES indeed read this thread, he saw how upset Lars and others were about his newsletter info being disseminated to non-subscribers before the subscribers got access to it, so he put a pre-emptive strike to any talk about the newsletter. Not bad for a "working-stiff," huh?
I kind of felt bad for the guy who called in saying he had bot the Fidelity Emerging Markets fund though. I think Bob was a little tough on the guy--well not tough on him per se, but his ranting over how poorly the fund had performed probably made the caller feel about 2" tall. The caller was like, "look, I know the fund sucks--I didn't call you to have you rub salt into my already-deep wounds--I just wanted to know if you thought I should cut the strings to it." I also felt bad for a few callers who owned some funds that apparently BB had recommended a few years ago and has since advised listeners to sell. There was one lady in particular who had a fund, asked BB if she should hold it or dump it, and BB jumped all over her, saying "I recommended that fund be sold awhile back...I told listeners to sell it...why do you still own this fund after I rec'd to sell it." I mean, the woman acknowledged that she blew his sell rec--maybe she wasn't listening the day he said to dump it--all she wanted to know was if she should still dump it or if it was a hold. IMO, he can be a little pompous when people like that call in--I mean, hey, people make mistakes. For instance, I've told clients to sell a stock before and they refused to sell. The stock goes down after the sell rec, and they call me and say, "look, should I sell it now or do you think it can come back?" I don't bow up on them and say, "Look Idiot--I told you to sell 6 months ago--you're on your own!" Instead, you just give them your thoughts about the stock (or fund, in this case) based on where it is right now and its prospects. Its not like the woman was trying to blame him--she freely admitted that she missed the sell-call. She just wanted to know what to do now.
Yeah, BB can be a little quirky at times, but lets face it--if you or I had a weekly radio show broadcast across the country, and the listeners held you in such esteem that they listened religiously for your buy and sell recs, you or I would be a little cocky at times too.
Re: the Money mag issue, I haven't seen it yet either. My office is across the street from a large newsstand and I've been looking for it. I saw it on Good Morning America, and they had that guy Tyler Matheson, who I guess is the editor, on the show to discuss it.
Gary |
