Arch Crawford of "The Crawford Perspective."  Peter Briimelow wrote: 


Brimelow continues:


Before you get too excited about Crawford's predictions, Brimelow continued:

This is not a flash in the pan ... well, not completely. Over the past five years, the Crawford letter has achieved an annualized gain of 3.1%, vs. 0.8% annualized for the total return DJ-W.

But over the entire period that the HFD has monitored Crawford, the letter has achieved only a 4.7% annualized gain, vs. 8.8% annualized for the total return DJ-W 5000.

This is because, every once in a while, Crawford's hot hand turns into a cold claw.

For example, Crawford was one the 10 worst-performing letters of 2006.

What it all means is you can get great short-term market timing performance with anything from coin flipping to astrology, but few, if any "market timing systems" can beat the markets over the long term. Most of us rely on asset allocation and careful stock selection to match or beat the markets slowly over the long haul. Bear markets such as we are in now are the price we pay to get superior long term returns. For more, make sure you read these articles:

• Using Asset Allocation to make money in a Flat Market
  
  
• Winning on the zigs, losing on the zags

Bradley Turn Date Graphs and List of Bradley Turn Dates by Year