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Strategies & Market Trends : Bob Brinker: Market Savant & Radio Host -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (15481)	12/18/2001 6:45:26 PM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42834

Buffett publicly forecast a long period of good market returns in 1979. Although he was three years early, he was correct about the long term. About this, he recently said, I was no good then at forecasting the near-term movements of stock prices, and I'm no good now. I never have the faintest idea what the stock market is going to do in the next six months, or the next year, or the next two. But I think it is very easy to see what is likely to happen over the long term. Ben Graham told us why: "Though the stock market functions as a voting machine in the short run, it acts as a weighing machine in the long run." Fear and greed play important roles when votes are being cast, but they don't register on the scale. In mid-1999, he publicly stated that investors were expecting far too much. Again, he was early, but he was right. fortune.com I have messages archived on my hard drive that detail how Ben Graham had a similarly good record of forecasting long term trends, which I can post if people are interested. Your surmise about Brinker's thought process seems highly speculative to me. I agree with your point about dissemination of market calls limiting their effectiveness, but only if a significant portion of investors act on those calls. From that point of view, the fact that there are skeptics is actually beneficial to any market timer - in fact, the more the merrier.