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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (37443)	8/1/2005 12:41:34 AM
From: ild	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

The best are bullish Top newsletters see rally extending in August By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Aug. 1, 2005 ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- The 10 stock market timing newsletters with the best records over the past decade are as bullish today as they were a month ago. This creates a challenge for me, since the formula for journalistic success is to report something new and exciting. Never mind that these top performers were right to be bullish. The broad market, as defined by the (97199001: news, chart, profile) Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, gained nearly 5% for the month of July. Nonetheless, to satisfy formulaic editors, let me hereby report something new: The best performing stock market newsletters' average recommended stock market exposure is 2.85 percentage points higher today than a month ago (93.9% vs. 91.0%). I defined my subset of 10 top timers by focusing on risk-adjusted performance over the last decade. That's a long enough period to include both a strong bull and a punishing bear market, and thus eliminate from consideration any timer was either a bullish or a bearish stopped clock. I also eliminated from consideration any newsletter whose good performance was due to security selection. That's because I wanted to focus only on those newsletters whose good records are traceable to getting into and out of the stock market at the right times. What follows is an alphabetical list of these top timers, along with a brief review of their market forecast at the beginning of August. Blue Chip Investor: Bullish. Editor Steven Check's valuation model continues to show stocks not only to be undervalued, but to be "very undervalued." Bob Brinker's Marketimer: Bullish. Editor Bob Brinker believes that the bull market that began a couple of years ago "has a significant distance to go both in terms of time and percentage gains." Cabot Market Letter: Bullish. Editor Timothy Lutts believes the stock market is in "great shape ... all the major indexes are perched above even their 25-day moving averages, while their more-important 50-day moving averages trail behind." Further gains are likely, in Lutts' opinion. The Chartist. Bullish. Editor Dan Sullivan continues "to be in the bullish camp and to recommend a fully invested position in stocks." Investors Guide to Closed-End Funds: Moderately bullish. Editor Thomas Herzfeld's "U.S. Equity Funds" model portfolio is 78 percent invested. No Load Fund Investor: Neutral. Though Sheldon Jacobs declares that he officially is neutral on the stock market because of rising interest rates, he nevertheless believes that "the overall economic backdrop is positive now for equities. Stock prices also are reasonable (and especially attractive compared to longer-term interest rates)." For his "Wealth Builder" portfolio is he recommending a 70% allocation to U.S. equities. Timer Digest: Bullish. Editor Jim Schmidt bases this newsletter's market timing model on a consensus of the top market timers. His consensus of the top 10 timers based on performance over the last 52 weeks is bullish, with 6 bulls, 3 bears and 1 neutral. His consensus of the top 10 for performance over the past two years is also bullish, with 9 bulls and just 1 bear. Vantage Point: Moderately bullish. Editor John Harris declares that "it's still a bull market." However, because "the economy and earnings growth are slowing," Harris is recommending that subscribers be just "moderately bullish." Vickers Weekly Insider Report. Bullish. Noting that recent insider trading data are not uniformly positive, Vickers continues "to believe that the market will advance -- with fits and starts -- over the next 12 to 18 months." Careful readers will note that just nine newsletters are listed here. What happened to the 10th? I eliminated it from my review because it is a purely mechanical model based on the calendar. Its good performance notwithstanding, its current posture tells us little about the market's prospects. So there you have it; not a bear among them. The least bullish editor is neutral with a 70% allocation to U.S. equities. No doubt they, and their subscribers, would be happy if August were only half as good a month for stocks as was July. marketwatch.com{B3DB479B-6814-441D-B505-1A7552877E8C}&siteid=mktw&dist=nbc