Description
Monthly newsletter with model portfolios, primarily mutual funds.
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Bob Brinker’s “Marketimer” is published monthly at a cost of $185 per year. Mr Brinker, who also hosts a radio show of the same name, has a Wall Street background and the newletter has been around many years. His 3 model portfolios range from aggressive to balanced risk levels and date back to 1988. I believe he does well consistently in the Hulbert rankings of stock newsletters. It’s hard to tell how well his portfolios are performing in the monthly newsletter since all performance tracking is done since inception. So, a portfolio may have grown to $200,000 from $40,000 since 1990 but you have no idea what it’s done in 1yr/3yr/5yr intervals. All the portfolios are composed of no load mutual funds,many of them Vanguard funds, some are index funds. Also, the portfolios rarely changed over the 3 years I was a subscriber. There is a short list (10 or so) of individual stocks and ETF’s but only funds in the portfolios. The 8 page report contains thoughtful commentary on the economy, the market, monetary policy,Federal Reserve updates, equity evaluations and investor sentiment. His approach is definitely conservative but, for someone audacious enough to call his newsletter “Marketimer,” he totally missed the downturn in October. Thats when I stopped reading and decided to not renew in December.
Mostly dealing with mutual funds. Has been right in the past but totally missed the October downturn. Will not be renewing.
We have subscribed to Bob Brinker’s Marketimer newsletter since 2002. From our experience, he has been consistently right in both direction and timing. In 2003, we heeded his subscriber bulletin and literally doubled our 401K holdings. The criticism that he missed the October downturn is not acutally valid in that he held the line in advising cost-dollar-averaging for new money throughout the period and predicted the bottoms very closely, only then giving a buy signal recently. He has missed a little on the depth of this bottom, but we remain confident in his forecasts and trust his models and very extensive research. Again in his defense, I don’t believe anyone saw all of this coming to the degree that it has this year. We will continue to consider the $185.00/yr subscription price the best money we spend all year.
I think Brinker’s commentaries on the market are solid, but the 2008 meltdown was much worse than the dot com bubble. He told everyone to go to cash at that time, so people thought he was a good market timer. I kept waiting for him to go to cash, but it did not happen. That is my fault. During 2008, with all of the financial issues, he stayed in the market and instructed to continue dollar cost averaging into the market. EVentually, we will hit the bottom. I think he should have been much more aware of the financial crisis and much more proactive. No one should follow any adviser blindly. Know your risk.
As a listener since 1987 I strongly believe that Bob is an exceptional well read indivdual with the in depth financial knowledge base most dream of having. That is why I feel, unless he was (to use his words) “out to lunch” OR LAID UP IN A HOSPITAL BED W/O ANY OUTSIDE CONTACT – during the housing bubble of 2006, 2007, and 2008, etc., Bear Stearns disaster, etc., knowing as he discussed on his show, mortage back securities issues, Bear Stearns disaster, the double top in the markets in 2007, AND all the economic news surrounding the mess as early as 2008, Bob Brinker had not one once of loyalty to his subscribers in warning them – at least – in Jan. 2008, that we were headed for at least a recession. His loyalty is to the mutual fund industry – and the disaster that would ensue from millions of subscribers – BAILING OUT. PLEASE THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND – Totally lost credibility. HE PULLED A FAST ONE ON TRUSTING HARDWORKING AMERICANS WHO BELIEVED HE WOULD LET THEM KNOW – SOMETHING.
Quite simple, Bob missed the call on the biggest bear market since the depression. I thought he would help me make the call to move to cash because of his prior history in timing the market. He’s great on the air and fun to listen to, but his “market timing” model needs re-tuning.
I subscribed to Marketimer and listened to Bob Brinker’s Moneytalk radio program for 15 years. His newsletter primarily deals with investing in no load mutual funds and I did quite well following his advice through the bull market run of the 1990’s. The two stellar calls made in this newsletter were Bob’s sell signal to cash reserves in January 2000 and his buy back into the market signal in March 2003. Unfortunately the market decline of 2007-2008 and the crash in October 2008 were completely missed and he had his model portfolios fully invested during this period. During the 2007-2008 period he identified several market levels that he considered attractive buying opportunities. These buying opportunity levels were unfortunately followed by even steeper declines and losses. I canceled my subscription to Marketimer at the end of 2008.
I agree with the reviews herein. Brinker missed the most critical timing call of my life time in 2008. He was stellar until then, but missing a call such as this, when you are paying for timing calls, is unforgivable. I dropped subscription after 2009 and have been doing my own DD.
DID YOU RECEIVE MY SUBSCRIPTION REQUEST FOR MARKETIMER?