Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Bob Brinker, Moneytalk and Marketimer -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: octavian who wrote (1575)	10/13/2007 7:36:10 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2121

I never said it was catastrophic unless you lost confidence in Brinker as an honest advisor and did not add significantly to your holdings in March 2003. The KEY to MathJunkie's calculation is one MUST load up with something like 25% of the total portfolio with QQQQ AGAIN... after having a third of your portfolio (if you are a P1 subscriber) drop by 75%... how many loaded up again and still believed Brinker after he called for several counter trend rallies on the way down? Calling it a cyclical bull in a secular bear is not going to inspire many to follow him since his last attempt at a "counter trend rally" using the QQQQ was such a bust. I have not met anyone who said they followed his advice to buy the QQQQs for 20 to 50% of cash reserves that had the confidence to follow him again in March 2003, but that may mean my sample size is too small. You said you bought the QQQQ in October 2000 on Bob Brinker's recommendation. Did you buy the recommended amount in March 2003 as he recommended? At least if he had the QQQQ on his official record and told his subscribers he was buying with his own money, as I do with my very volatile stocks that go down even more when they are out of favor, then people would have an easier time jumping in. But, technically, you are correct. Not to forget, the real issue is properly accounting for QQQQ in his P1 means his P1 has 29.5% less money in it than he reports AND the annual return of P1 since inception underperforms the W5000 by 1.3% x nearly 20 years...

To: octavian who wrote (1575)	10/14/2007 10:58:42 AM
From: davidk555	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2121

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. It was a horrible recommendation no doubt, but no advisor is perfect in terms of making recommendations on individual securities, funds or timing. That is not why the QQQQ caused such the controversy it has over the years in my opinion. The reason for that I believe is the way that it was handed, and evidenced (or made clear) some of Bob Brinker's flaws. This was the first bulletin issued which in and of itself was quite a remarkable and anticipated event following the QQQQ recommendation on Moneytalk a few months earlier. 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. All it said was to Act Immediately. Whether the lack of date and buy level was purposefully done to give him wiggle room later, or simply something Brinker was negligent in forgetting to include, either way it looks bad. Of course, the lack of any stop loss also showed a bit of amateurness to the recommendation - especially given the amount of bragging Brinker had done over his supposed trading skills over the years. Then there was the issue of the reset in January 2001 Marketimer which made it seem like Brinker was recommending it for the first time, after the QQQQs had already declined significantly. This lead to a journalist on theStreet.com even being critical of Brinker. And then finally, was the way Brinker avoided discussing it, or addressing which really angered many people, and continues to anger people today. I base this on first hand knowledge from subscribers to my newsletter who still own the QQQQ shares. (And there is still confusion among subscribers to Marketimer as to whether he ever recommended selling them). Brinker could have maintained his credibility, even with a bad recommendation, if he simply owned up to his mistakes in a credible manner. 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. - David Korn (see my profile on SI for more information about me).