[berned]

The world of Investment Advisor Letters has hundreds and hundreds of "advisors" who continually and perpetually predict bear markets even through the very best of times. The most classic recent example is Elaine Garzarelli who screamed SELL SELL SELL in 1996!!!!!! (Thereby missing one of the hugest bull mkt upswings in history and losing her "advisor letter" in the process.)

Then after a bear mkt DOES coincidentally come along, these perpetual bears always wearily "take credit".

[Grampa Dave]

Exactly these bad news bears are just as bad as the bullish buy all the time guys. That is why after Brinker lost my confidence, I became my own advisor. We did very well in 2001 and are beating the market this year with most of our funds.

I will credit Bob Brinker for his constant warnings about the insanity of the pe ratios during the Clintoonian Bull years. Those warnings kept me from losing big time on our 401k's, iras and the church savings program which I advised and basically set the decisions. All of these programs have increased their value and not had devastating losses since 2000 like so many of my friends who got caught in the bear trap of 2000 to now.