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

To: davidk555 who wrote (2066)	4/1/2008 12:32:58 AM
From: Midwest_Investor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2121

David, You accuse Brinker of spin, but to be honest, I’ve seen a great deal of “spin” from yourself lately. Let’s look at two specific examples: Example one: 1] You make a statement about Bob Brinker which is repeated here: “he has made as many horrible recommendations as he has made fantastic recommendations.” 2] Math responds by saying, “Care to document that assertion?” A very reasonable request given the original statement made by you. 3] You Respond by saying, “I don't really have time right now to go back and put them all here……” and then you go right to the QQQ, without a direct response to your original statement which again was “he has made as many horrible recommendations as he has made fantastic recommendations.” 4] Then you try to assert a position of expertise by saying, “I was like both of you.”. But you never addressed the original claim you made which again was , “he has made as many horrible recommendations as he has made fantastic recommendations” If you are such an expert about Brinker, then it shouldn’t be difficult for you to prove your original statement. Example 2: You made IMHO, a very strange post on 2/5/2008 on another SI Brinker discussion thread which was addressed to “Bob.” This, IMHO, was a combination of spin and spam. It’s spam because you included the statement, “…..my other newsletter which you can learn about by clicking on my profile or visiting the other silicon thread………” That’s spam. And, so far as we know, Bob is not on SI, and if he is, he obviously wishes to remain anonymous. If you know for fact that he’s here, then outing him isn’t the right thing to do --- see SI TOS, transmission of material invasive of another's privacy. But beyond that, you stated to Bob, “I am going to heed your advice and within a week, I will try to get our performance figures on theretirementadvisor.net published.” When exactly did Bob give this advice? Was it on his radio show? A week from tomorrow, 2 months will have passed since you posted that statement, and I don’t think your results have been posted. Further, if it takes this long for you to figure out what your results are, well that’s a fundamental problem with any newsletter. You also stated, “One of the difficulties I have had is trying to gather all of the information from about 1000 newsletters (including alerts) that I have sent over the last 9 years so that I can provide performance figures from inception. When I have completed that daunting task, I will publish them publically on my discussion thread on SI. I promise you that, but it will take some time to go through. I intend to include every thing, not just cherry picking. “ Again, a week from tomorrow, 2 months will have passed since you stated this. One mark of a professional is following through on what you say you are going to do, so we hope you choose to publish this information soon. Oh, but you’re too busy publishing more newsletters. I don’t see how you can you justify publishing a newsletter complete with alerts etc, and not know your historical performance. I wonder how you can assure your readers that you know what you are doing based on past performance when you make buy calls like your recent buy call on the SP500. As I understand it, those who followed your SP500 buy advice either lost $$$$$ or made no money when they were stopped out. So, before you make a direct statement calling Bob Brinker or anyone else “a true master at spin,” you might consider looking at your own actions, and how they look to others. Cordially, Midwest Investor

To: davidk555 who wrote (2066)	4/1/2008 2:14:56 AM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2121

"All I was saying is that Bob has made some fantastic calls and some horrible recommendations." That's not you said. What you said was, "I mean he has made as many horrible recommendations as he has made fantastic recommendations." If you are now retracting that statement, fair enough.

To: davidk555 who wrote (2066)	4/1/2008 7:43:26 PM
From: octavian	Respond to of 2121

david k. said: <<Leaving that aside, I realized that many casual listeners to Bob Brinker have the same impression I do. Bob is a master, a true master at spin. I don't think even you or Math would argue with that.>> --I would not argue that, except to add that kirk and Will L. are almost as good! -:) << By way of example, a new subscriber of mine recently asked me how long Bob had been bullish on gold and gave him credit for telling a caller to invest up to 5% of a portfolio in gold. The caller didn't realize that Bob has been BEARISH on gold for as long as he as been on the radio and only heard Bob's comment in isolation that was meant to spin it to make him look good.>> --The caller wasn't LISTENING. Every time I have heard Bob talk about gold, he has made it very clear he doesn't recommend it. But then he adds something like, "if you want to have 5% or so in your portfolio to protect against disaster, I have no problem with that." Every brinker basher always wants to blame brinker for errors that his subscribers or listeners make! <<Now as for Bob being correct from 1991 through 1999 that was a correct call. But another way to look at Bob over the last 18 years is that he has basically been a buy and holder with the exception of 2000-March 2003 during which time he went to 65% cash but then recommended that up to half of that be put into an investment that is still down close to 50% eight years later!>> --The above is, of course, all correct, but to me it is big-time spin. "He has basically been a buy-and-holder" is a great way to downplay his great success. From 1992 to my retirement in 2001 I read "everything." I KNOW there were very, very few pundits who stayed bullish all those years. I can't even count the number of times I read in Barrons or someplace else that some highly-regarded pundit "has been bullish all through this bull market, but has now turned bearish." Many people forget that doomsayers were everywhere during that great bull. I don't know of anyone other than Brinker, Abby Cohen and Battapaglia who were bullish the whole time, and Brinker was the ONLY ONE of those 3 who turned cautious in 2000! For him to do all of that, and then turn bullish again at almost exactly the right time in 2003 is amazing to anyone who is not determined to criticize him. I certainly can't write it off as coincidence, or luck, or a "coin flip." The QQQs obviously were a total fiasco. They came out of left field, for whatever reason. But I am convinced they had nothing to do with his long-term timing model. It was some kind of experiment that failed. If he hadn't made that fatal error, he would be being hailed as a genius of geniuses for his amazing feat of staying bullish all through the bull, cutting back in 2000, and then going 100% bullish again in 2003. To try to take away from his performance by saying he is "just a buy and holder," or "everyone was bullish then" (another favorite basher trick) is just plain nasty, or ignorant, or close-minded. That's just my opinion.