Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

[Jim Nickerson]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...CC76936F341%7D 12/17/08

As well as I can tell these results are to 11/30/2008

Of course, it was a disastrous year. The dividend-reinvested Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 was down 38.3% over the year to date ending in November.

But the winner, Arch Crawford's Crawford Perspectives, gained 42.4%, a performance that would have gotten into the top 10 most any year. Crawford is a veteran technically-oriented timer who is famous for openly discussing astrology. (I say openly because there's more of it on Wall Street than you might think. Or perhaps you do think). He's had bad years and he has underperformed the market over the decades that the Hulbert Financial Digest has been monitoring him, but in the last few years he's been on a roll. See Nov. 9 column

Crawford has been short most of 2008, but currently he's cheerful. In his letter dated Dec. 1, he wrote: "We are looking for some further advancement this week, followed by a decline into the Full Moon square Saturn on Dec. 12, probably marking a pull-back low Dec. 12-17. This pullback is likely to form a Right Shoulder on a potential Reverse Head-and-Shoulder bottom formation. From there, an explosive year-end move could develop in the upward direction, which we expect to be very profitable. Rally should rise well into January.

"After a corrective phase into late February, a much stronger and more lasting advance is indicated by the Bradley Model well into the summer of 2009."

The Bradley Model? It's new to me too, but that's the joy of these pioneering letters.

Peter Eliades of Stockmarket Cycles, the runner-up with a 20.8% gain, is a similar sort of letter: long, somewhat checkered history; esoteric method; currently on a multi-year roll. See Aug. 4 column

But Eliades is not cheerful at all; in fact, he's itching to go short. A sample of his thinking from Tuesday night's letter: "There is a lot of evidence pointing to the possibility of a market top at these levels. One of our favorite technical tools is the use of Speed Resistance Lines as formulated by the past market master Edson Gould ... The 2/3 Speed Resistance Line from the May 19, 2008 high of the year on most indexes down to the Nov. 21 low of the year came in today right in the area of today's high. At the same time, the 55-day moving average of the S&P 500 cash index was at 917.35 today and the high for the day was 918.85. Add to that information the fact that today was the 148th day of an important turning-point pattern that has registered important market highs and lows between 147-151 trading days apart and that gives us even more evidence of a potential top."

2008's Top Ten
1. Crawford Perspectives +42.4%
2. Peter Eliades Stockmarket Cycles 20.8%
3. Elliott Wave Financial Forecast 18.9%
4. Doug Fabian's ETF Trader 13.2%
5. Yamamoto Forecast 7.7%
6. Lowry On-Demand Investor 7.6%
7. Investment Models Newsletter 5.6%
8. P.Q. Wall Forecast 5.4%
9. Stealth Stocks Daily Alert 5.3%
10. On the Money 2.1%

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

I have no idea how much those advisors above follow their own advice and either make or lose money from doing so, but giving investment advice whether it turns out well or not, doesn't seem at all necessary in order to make a decent living from managing other people's/institution's monies.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...%7D&dist=msr_8 12/3/08

Harvard's endowment has lost an estimated 30% just since mid-year.
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The endowment of one of the most elite educational institutions in the world, run by some of the best and brightest investment managers, who have been granted privileged access to the innermost insiders in the business world, Wall Street, and Washington, D.C., lost nearly a third of its value in just five months' time.
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Even investment newsletter editors, who are sneered at by many on Wall Street, accused of being nothing more than a bunch of lunatic self promoters, have on balance done better than that: The average five-month return through Nov. 30, among the nearly 200 newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, was a loss of "just" 28.9%.

But not so fast, despite losing its ass since 6/30, someone at Harvard money management must have done something right prior to then.

12/20/08 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122971518205622267.html

Annual pay for six top Harvard University endowment managers totaled $26.8 million in the latest academic year, up 15% from the year before.
The increase comes as the school is cutting its budget in the wake of a steep recent drop in the value of the university's endowment.

Harvard said the payments rewarded the investment managers for strong performance in the year ended June 30. In that period, the fund posted an investment return of 8.6%, compared with a negative 13% return for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. The endowment, higher education's largest, ended the year at $36.9 billion. The year before, the top six managers received a total of $23.3 million.




This month, Harvard said its endowment had declined at least 22%, or about $8 billion, from June 30 through Oct. 31. But the school said the estimate understates the actual amount of the decline because it doesn't include hard-to-value assets, such as real estate and private equity. The university is planning for a 30% decline for the fiscal year ending June 2009. Yale University and other big endowments also have reported similar steep declines.

I bet those bonuses/performance rewards suck next year if things keep going the way they have. Do you think there is a bailout available for the money managers? Those guys have got to eat and pay their bills too.

[GRG55]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

...I bet those bonuses/performance rewards suck next year if things keep going the way they have. Do you think there is a bailout available for the money managers? Those guys have got to eat and pay their bills too.

El Erian bailed out already...and headed back to the other coast to rejoin Pimco.

[LargoWinch]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

Stephen Leebs has not been doing so great. Some of his picks includes:

1- Royal Bank of Canada at $40

2- "Buy" Crude if it dips below $120!

3- Dow 9000: The market is way oversold. The rally is coming. Chance of a lifetime.

I will not renew my subscription...

[BadJuju]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

Larry Kudlow has provided some wonderful forecasts:

Kudlow firmly denied that US was in recession in early and mid 2008. He wrote:"President George W. Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country." in his "R" is for "Right" in May, 2008.

"Interesting — isn’t it? — just how durable and resilient our low-tax, free-market, capitalist economy truly is. Hit by soaring food and energy prices, a bad housing downturn, and a Wall Street credit crunch, the economy continues to expand, albeit slowly."

"The bad news bears always focus on areas of economic weakness. But parts of the economy are doing splendidly. This includes agriculture, energy, export firms operating in the global boom, and all manner of private-sector business, professional, health, and education services. Incidentally, these are the exact sectors producing the highest-paying jobs. What’s more, at 154 million employed, the civilian labor force just hit a new all-time high."

"As a result of mighty efforts by the Federal Reserve, the credit crunch is easing and bond-market risk spreads are falling. The stock market just finished its best April since 2003, with the Dow running above 13,000. The Fed has come to the end of its rate-cutting cycle, and the U.S. greenback is starting to gain strength. With the dollar turning stronger, gold and other inflation signals are coming down."

[Slimprofits]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

The rightwing nutjob, "Business Media Institute" says there was no recession in 2008 and that the leftwing mainstream media on-air personalities can be blamed for everything. You can't get awesome macro analysis such as that that just anywhere!

see: The Great Media Depression

[Sharky]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

In my opinion, the days of being able to rely on third-party investment advisers are over. The markets of today are just too heavily manipulated. Technical analysis is regularly failing. Black Swans are hitting left-and-right.

Successful investments of the future will depend on an entirely different approach: really understanding what you're investing in (including the associated intermediaries, if any). Without adequate due diligence, every penny you invest today is at serious risk; the risk inherent in almost all of today's markets far outweighs the potential profits.

[phirang]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

Sharky, good insights.

Most good fund managers are in cash now.

I do have some options in my account, but I use them to hedge any downside on my stocks.

Aside from that, this market is a giant casino. The only thing I'm reasonably sure of is that gold won't go below $600/oz in 2009.

[xela]

Re: Which investment letters/advisors were hot in 2008?

Sharky, good insights.

Most good fund managers are in cash now.

I do have some options in my account, but I use them to hedge any downside on my stocks.

Aside from that, this market is a giant casino. The only thing I'm reasonably sure of is that gold won't go below $600/oz in 2009.

re gold: that's very reassuring, coming from you..