Happened to glance through the first installment of Barron's 2010 Roundtable this past week at the library.
When I say "glance through", I should clarify; I glance through all the parts I don't care about (comments from Abby Cohen, et. al) and carefully read the sections where Marc Faber and Felix Zulauf (and if time allows, Meryl Witmer or Fred Hickey) are talking.
Sometimes I'll stop and read Bill Gross' comments, but I think that has more to do with the fact that you never know what he is going to say these days, and it's interesting to see how his remarks line up with some of his (and PIMCO's) previous sentiments and actions.
Anyway, if you saw the 2009 roundtable report card, you'll notice that everyone's picks for last year were well in the black overall. Compare that to 2008's roundtable results (largely disastrous) and you'll see that roundtable participant greatly benefited from the broad market rally we saw during 2009.
No, I don't chalk this up to skill on (most of) their parts. In fact, the phrase that went through my head on examining this year's report card was, "they got their asses saved (by this rally) after last year's calls". Well, 2008 was pretty brutal all around.
Marc Faber seems to be the performance standout of last year's roundtable. The breadth and number of his calls in 2009 far outpaced the rest, and strong equity markets certainly helped keep his long positions positive. Still, it's amazing to look down at that 2009 report card and see every one of those picks in positive territory. The others did pretty well, too.
Enough of that. Let's see what the group have to say in the latest installment of Barron's 2010 Roundtable, shall we?
Related articles and posts:
1. Barron's Roundtable 2009 notes - Finance Trends.
2. 2008 Barron's Roundtable review - Finance Trends.
When I say "glance through", I should clarify; I glance through all the parts I don't care about (comments from Abby Cohen, et. al) and carefully read the sections where Marc Faber and Felix Zulauf (and if time allows, Meryl Witmer or Fred Hickey) are talking.
Sometimes I'll stop and read Bill Gross' comments, but I think that has more to do with the fact that you never know what he is going to say these days, and it's interesting to see how his remarks line up with some of his (and PIMCO's) previous sentiments and actions.
Anyway, if you saw the 2009 roundtable report card, you'll notice that everyone's picks for last year were well in the black overall. Compare that to 2008's roundtable results (largely disastrous) and you'll see that roundtable participant greatly benefited from the broad market rally we saw during 2009.
No, I don't chalk this up to skill on (most of) their parts. In fact, the phrase that went through my head on examining this year's report card was, "they got their asses saved (by this rally) after last year's calls". Well, 2008 was pretty brutal all around.
Marc Faber seems to be the performance standout of last year's roundtable. The breadth and number of his calls in 2009 far outpaced the rest, and strong equity markets certainly helped keep his long positions positive. Still, it's amazing to look down at that 2009 report card and see every one of those picks in positive territory. The others did pretty well, too.
Enough of that. Let's see what the group have to say in the latest installment of Barron's 2010 Roundtable, shall we?
Related articles and posts:
1. Barron's Roundtable 2009 notes - Finance Trends.
2. 2008 Barron's Roundtable review - Finance Trends.