Mark Hulbert of MarketWatch featured a story called “Still Bullish,” in which he looks at the best long-term timing newsletters to see whether they had maintained their bullishness since early August or reduced their equity market exposure.
Interestingly, the bottom line was that nobody was bearish with the average equity allocation having reached 86%. He further mentions that the best market timers on average have more than double the equity exposure of the 10 worst market timers.
He makes a good point in that if you are betting on a bear market right now, you have to bet against the timers with the best long-term records and side with those whose records have been awful.
My view is that if you simply follow trends, as I harp on constantly, you don’t have to bet against anybody whether they have a winning record or not. Go with the uptrend for as long as it lasts, and get out when your trailing sell stops get triggered. It’s as simple as that, although many talking heads in then media like to make it far more complicated.