David K. said:
<<I would agree that the QQQQ recommendation made first in October 2000, repeated in November/December 2000, reset and recommended again in January 2001, was not catastrophic to someone following all of Bob Brinker's stock market timing advice to the letter.
The reason is that it was recommended for all subscribers (conservative through aggressive) to purchase with the cash reserves they had raised from the January 2000 tactical asset allocation signal. And for someone following all of that advice, their portfolio would have been able to weather the QQQQ recommendation.>>
--Thank you. That pretty well sums it up. You would think everyone would agree, but we had some hellacious debates on the Yahoo board a while back with bashers who insisted that it was catastrophic to many subscribers.
Retired in Prescott was the poster boy for the "catastrophic" crowd for saying Brinker had "ruined my retirement." The bashers LOVED him! At least until fish and some others came along and poked a bunch of holes in his "story."
<<It was a horrible recommendation no doubt, but no advisor is perfect in terms of making recommendations on individual securities, funds or timing.>>
--Thanks for that too. That has always been my point. But the bashers aren't usually willing to make that concession (which is why they are called bashers). -:)
I do agree with them on one point though: It is hard to imagine an advisor making a worse recommendation, everything considered.
<<If you have ever seen the bulletin, there were two glaring things wrong with it in the first place. First, it was not dated anywhere! Second, there was no specific buy level on the recommendation.>>
--Yes, I have seen it. There was one in my mailbox! -:) Another thing that was wrong with it, imo, is that it was absurd to recommend that as much as 1/3 of a person's portfolio be put into a short-term trade!
Would any *real* trader do such a thing? (Needless to say, if one would actually risk that much, he would have a quick stop-loss trigger).
<<(And there is still confusion among subscribers to Marketimer as to whether he ever recommended selling them).>>
--IMO, he never has. Not the "original" ones.
<< Brinker could have maintained his credibility, even with a bad recommendation, if he simply owned up to his mistakes in a credible manner.>>
--I agree, of course. But imo that is no excuse for people to run around the internet dreaming up things to bash him about.
<< Unfortunately, this behavior has not changed in my opinion, as evidenced even this past weekend as Bob is now trying to spin his way out of the recommendation he made with regard to the DVY now that it has underperformed the market over the last year. Only a close listener might have picked up on that.>>
--Are you talking about his telling a caller that DVY cannot be expected to keep up with the S&P in a bull market because it is composed of slow-growers? And that it is designed for people who want income? I don't see any problem with that!
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