That figure is published in the newsletter and on his website each month. For Portfolio I, 9/30/2000 showed total assets of $139,431, and 11/30/2004 shows assets of $200,844 on his website, for a gain of 44%.
Well, I suspect you're trying to obfuscate things but I'll play along for a while.
That gives a too low estimate since his model portfolio includes a mix of 35/40% that Bobbler left in the market to be ravaged by the biggest bear market that most of us will live to see. So, the 44% number is dragged down by that weighting and wouldn't apply to an independent trade. If you want to get at an opportunity cost, it would apply to just that independent trade and is not offset by other parts of the portfolio.
Also, if you entered the Bulletin #1 trade in 2000, you entered with up to 50% cash on hand. Now, that could have been around 65% of your portfolio if you followed strictly the advice given by Bobbler. On the other hand, you would have been more shrewed to have exited completely in Jan. 2000, in which case you had 100% cash available to trade with. Bobbler, in his usual shallow way, didn't give any specific instructions, only a general idea of what you should do. In fact, here's a case where you could have been penalized by being right! Well, what do you expect for $185 a year?
So, if you want to sugar coat the magnitude of the Bobbler's deed, then you go on with your line of reasoning. But anyone with a calculator and some simple assumptions can do the math. You'll certainly never read about it in the bland scribbles he calls a newsletter. |
