Bob Brinker just called it quits! Marketimer is gone!

[bigla]

I was an avid listener in 80’s through 2004. I got out in 2000 when he said to and then got back in in 2003 when he gave the signal. It saved me a bundle and let me retire at 55. However after that I found his calls got or miss and gave up on him. Became a Boglehead and stayed the course.

 

[Koolau]

Now you'll have to switch over to Clark Howard. He's still putting out daily content after 30+ years. It is a little more consumer oriented, but he's always been my favorite. "Save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off!"

Heh, heh, I guess I don't have to listen to him now!


Thanks for failing to give us a SPOILER ALERT!

 

[No900SS]

I had my "15 minutes of fame" phone call on his show in the '80s(recorded and saved, just because), regarding paying off our mortgage. I subscribed to the newsletter for a few years and his advice served me very well. I have missed his shows, having learned and benefitted personally from his counsel for many years,

 

[Koolau]

I had my "15 minutes of fame" phone call on his show in the '80s(recorded and saved, just because), regarding paying off our mortgage. I subscribed to the newsletter for a few years and his advice served me very well. I have missed his shows, having learned and benefitted personally from his counsel for many years,

Only time I was on the radio was trying to win something by coming up with some rock and roll trivia. I won a few times. I knew that trivia would be handy some day. I think I won 5 or 6 coffee mugs with the radio stations' logo on them. Someone at megacorp heard me on the radio one day and whined to my mgmt. That was the end of my collecting a set of coffee cups.

 

[rmcelwee]

Only time I was on the radio was trying to win something by coming up with some rock and roll trivia.(

When my DW and I first started dating (1987?) we would stay up late listening to the radio trying to win free stuff. I remember we had a stack of CD's before we had anything to play them on. I think our biggest win was a fully paid trip (very nice hotel, plane tickets, etc) to Boston to see Robert Palmer. Anyway, we always taped ourselves on the radio and your post reminded me there was a cassette with dozens of our wins on it that I converted to MP3 20 years ago. I guess I'll have to look around for that now.

 

[tryan]

I listened and subscribed for years ... also got bit by the QQQ call. And was a bit "disheartened" the way he would shut-down callers who were looking for further guidance on the QQQ play while it cratered.

Nobody's perfect ... I get that. So I turned my focus to REAL ESTATE ...lol. Thanx Bob!!

 

[tryan]

.... always wondered if his market timing model was science or Bob licking his finger and sticking it up in the air.

If it's science I would expect Bob Jr. to run with it.

 

[rmcelwee]

.... always wondered if his market timing model was science or Bob licking his finger and sticking it up in the air.

If it's science I would expect Bob Jr. to run with it.

I heard him say a few times that he looked at 17 or so different charts to figure out what was going on. It would be a nice farewell for him to write all the subscribers an email with a few tips on it if his son (I'm assuming he is in his 60's) is not going to continue with it. FWIW, I'm just curious with this. I am past the point in my life trying to time the market to any great extent.

 

[segfault]

I never followed this guy, but as others have noted, it's a bit odd there isn't a successor, if he's built a successful business.

 

[jazz4cash]

I never followed this guy, but as others have noted, it's a bit odd there isn't a successor, if he's built a successful business.

I doubt that anyone who followed him feels this way. The market timing aspect of his newsletter includes hits and misses but if you read the comments carefully I think you’ll see that most of us valued the educational aspect of his show and newsletter. He definitely used many indicators to reach a buy/sell/hold decision. There were actually very few triggers to change course.

 

[ERD50]

....

The radio you referred to was the GE Super Radio. An excellent product. Clones are made today but don't work as well. ...

I recall him advertising a (supposedly) high quality AM radio, but "GE Super" wasn't ringing the bells for me.

Took me a bit of googling, but "C-Crane" is what jumped out for me.

https://ccrane.com/am-fm-radios-1/

Was that it?

Like many others, I learned a lot from Bob Brinker. No-load mutual funds, broad indexes vs individual stocks (mostly) 'stay the course", avoid the "Shark Attack".

Subscribed for a few years, but ended up in the buy and hold camp, so didn't see the value at that point.

-ERD50

 

[youbet]

I recall him advertising a (supposedly) high quality AM radio, but "GE Super" wasn't ringing the bells for me.

Took me a bit of googling, but "C-Crane" is what jumped out for me.

https://ccrane.com/am-fm-radios-1/

Was that it?

-ERD50

Yep, I think your memory trumps mine on that!

Several of my ham radio buddies suggested the GE Super Radio to me for listening in low signal strength situations and I was always happy with mine. Although, here in Chicago with Brinker being on 50KW WLS, listening to him while at home wasn't an issue. The GE Super Radio was a great AM DXing machine, but not the one that was advertised on Brinker's show.

It was the C-Crane radio that advertised heavily on the Brinker show for some time. I have one but the display went south many years ago and replacements are not available.

 

[rmcelwee]

I doubt that anyone who followed him feels this way.

I agree. When Mick Jagger retires will anyone say "I guess the Stones weren't really successful because no one replaced him"?

 

[jazz4cash]

I have a faint recollection of both the CCrane radio and the GE Super. I bought the GE and it was pretty good at pulling in WLS in Chicago to Indy where I was living. In winter the signal was turned down at sunset in the last hour of the show. That would’ve been late 80’s to mid 90’s. I listened to Charles Givens (Wealth Without Risk) before that, and Bruce Williams.

 

[Time2]

WBEZ FM (public radio) broadcast PHC live from 5pm to 7pm Saturdays. Then they rebroadcast it from noon to 2pm Sundays. Brinker was on WLS AM from 3pm to 6pm Sat and Sun. So we had a one hour conflict (5pm to 6pm) on Sat. If Bob had something particularly interesting going on that last hour of his show, we'd stick with Bob and catch the PHC rerun Sunday.

Of course, in today's world everything would be "on demand" and brought to you flawlessly via some digital delivery system. Sometimes I miss the old days and the intrigue of the airwaves........

The radio you referred to was the GE Super Radio. An excellent product. Clones are made today but don't work as well.

I have had two versions of the GE Super Radio, yes, good AM receivers. Sold one on Ebay recently. I have had 30+ year AM radio listening hobby and AM antenna hobby that got attenuated when I got a streaming cellphone that could get 1000s of radio stations. And then I found "old time radio" streaming. Now I think about AM antennas, but have not done any projects recently. I did just buy a low noise Loop amplifier (LZ1AQ for those interested), so there is a project in the future.
Good luck and health to Bob, I have already written how big he was in our journey to critical mass.

 

[iloveyoga]

Link to my call is below (it is nice to hear his opening themesong). I did manage to run the HSA up to $250K last week so his comment on HSA's missed the mark.

Thank you for sharing! I enjoyed his show and probably listened to your call. I will miss the newsletter.

 

[rmcelwee]

Thank you for sharing! I enjoyed his show and probably listened to your call. I will miss the newsletter.

I looked on a couple of old HDs yesterday for his shows. I have a feeling there are a couple of years of recordings somewhere. When I found it hard to get his show locally I started recording the internet stream.

I remembered something while I was searching - I was sitting in the "cat bird seat", one of his old sayings.

 

[sparky08]

Bruce Williams.....wow, there's a flashback.

My first job out of college needed a lab, and being new-man-on-the-crew, I got the late night slot. Our local station played Bruce Williams in the early hours, so he kept me awake.

Oh, and I had a GE Superradio. It was so old it didn't have the expanded frequencies (after 1600 kHz). RCA makes a model that you can still buy, but I don't know how good it is.

 

[Koolau]

Link to my call is below (it is nice to hear his opening themesong). I did manage to run the HSA up to $250K last week so his comment on HSA's missed the mark.

With due respect to Bob (and to you) I don't see that he answered your questions about which money to take first. He acknowledged your take on Roths (their "special" because they grow with no taxes due - ever.)

With that in mind, there ARE ways to prioritize your withdrawals but it might take a tax professional to w*rk it out, so I guess I give Bob a pass.

Thanks for the personal recording. It proves those of us here on FIRE Forum are actually human beings!

 

[rmcelwee]

With due respect to Bob (and to you) I don't see that he answered your questions about which money to take first. He acknowledged your take on Roths (their "special" because they grow with no taxes due - ever.)

I've since learned, even in my very short 15 months of retirement, that all theory is thrown out the window once you start your new life. We will probably live on an HSA distribution for the rest of this year. Who would have seen that coming?

I always joked that:

1) Bob was taking notes during my call because I was teaching him.

or

2) Bob shut his radio show down because dumba$$es kept calling him (like me).

 

[Koolau]

I've since learned, even in my very short 15 months of retirement, that all theory is thrown out the window once you start your new life. We will probably live on an HSA distribution for the rest of this year. Who would have seen that coming?

I always joked that:

1) Bob was taking notes during my call because I was teaching him.

or

2) Bob shut his radio show down because dumba$$es kept calling him (like me).

I love this!....... Thanks for the laugh!

 

[Turbo29]

I enjoyed listening to his show and greatly profited from his recommendation of the Janus Venture Fund in the dot com era. I rolled my entire 401K from a job I had just left into that fund and then due to a bad feeling sold it all about a month before the dot com crash.

Things I didn't profit from: HIs QQQ recommendation and his recommendation of Ultratech Stepper stock. He also would rant about Amazon back in those days (when they were only a bookseller) saying that even if they were the only one that sold books they could not turn a profit. I guess he couldn't foresee them moving beyond books.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I came home from a long vacation on Saturday and found my letter and refund check in the pile of mail that had accumulated. I am disappointed but not surprised. I also subscribed to his son's fixed income newsletter and that was terminated in April in favor of a paid site that is significantly more expensive and I will not be subscribing.

I started listening to Bob in the late 80s I think and he is responsible for my financial education that eventually led to an MBA in finance. It's not so much that I believed or agreed with everything he said but he planted ideas that led to me doing research on my own and reading some great books. I subscribed to his newsletter a few months before the dot com bust and he saved me more in losses I would have experience the newsletter cost me over the almost 25 years.

What I liked best about the newsletter, and i can say the same for his son's, was that they provided sanguine commentary on the markets and economy that was a welcomed counter to the noise in the media. Yes, he had some stumbles through the years and I did not always follow his advice on actions to take. But I always found the commentary helpful.

Has anyone heard anything about the reasons for the abrupt end? I realize he is in his early 80s and may have just decided to retire. But I fear there may be health issues or something behind the closure. I hope not. I know he was pretty private and I cannot recall any time in 25 years of listening that he shared much about his personal life beyond his early days in radio. I respect that.

 

[Chuckanut]

Years ago, when I followed Mr. Brinker’s advice, I lost a nice chunk of money when things did not work out favorably.

I asked the investment gods if they could undo the loss that was caused by Mr. Brinker’s faulty advice. They replied that they could do that, but they would also have to undo all the profits I had made from following his advice. I withdrew my request.

 

[Time2]

Years ago, when I followed Mr. Brinker’s advice, I lost a nice chunk of money when things did not work out favorably.

I asked the investment gods if they could undo the loss that was caused by Mr. Brinker’s faulty advice. They replied that they could do that, but they would also have to undo all the profits I had made from following his advice. I withdrew my request.

Ahh, yes QQQ! I spent 18 years writing off my losses until I took a large capital gain and wrote off the rest. I still credit Bob for our financial position and reading between the lines, it seems you probably aren't all that upset with him. Am I right??