Recently, one of A-hole's equally stupid fans wrote to congratulate A-hole on his profound ability to forecast the economy. Let's look back, shall we?
In March of 2007 (March 2nd or 3rd), another A-hole fan wrote to ask A-hole's advice on investment. A-hole (who never misses an opportunity to criticize the "negativity" of the economic press, except when it's anti-Obama) recommended the following: Dow, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Washington Mutual, Allstate, Capital One, and a dividend-based ETF from iShares, DVY.
Here's how they've done since then:
Wal-Mart up 10.04%, an annualized return of +4.66%.
Dow down 76%
Home Depot down 35%
Washington Mutual down ONE HUNDRED PERCENT (but then A-hole would joke, I wasn't wrong, I was early! :) ... because stocks always go up in the long run, except those which cease to exist and stay at zero forever, like WaMu)
Allstate down 64%
Capital One down 82%
DVY down 53%
Of course, the only pick he ever referred to again was Wal-Mart.
If you had bought an equal amount of all those stocks, you would have lost 57.25% as of today. Dividends would bring the figure down to about 50%.
But he wasn't wrong, he was early! :) Of course, in the same period the S&P 500 was down 40.51% ... so A-hole underperformed the market by only 1674 basis points.
