[quote=EconProf]davejl: Please be specific. If she was right on the market’s direction and on the fundamentals, how did she lose people money?
Your comments are so often spot-on, so I hope you can respond.
Frankly, Merideth Whitney was early and right in so many ways, and caught flack for it until proven correct, so I tend to trust her forecasts.[/quote]

Simple. She stayed bearish on PRICES for too long. And they continued to rise while she continued to maintain a bearish stance. Again, she’s been pretty accurate with the fundamentals. But, then again, so was Peter Schiff. And he apparently blew a huge hole in his clients’ portfolios as well. Being right on the fundamentals is fine and dandy – and kudos! But being right on the price direction of investments is another thing entirely. And her job is to make people money – that is, get the price direction correct.

Look, I’ve been wrong about stuff like this as well. I’ve been advising anyone who would listen to sell the S&P since it got back to 1000. And I’ve been wrong. Although I’m highly confident that the S&P will see 850 before 2012 is out. But I could be wrong. But, importantly, I don’t get paid to make those predictions.

That’s the way markets work. They get you bullish at the top, bearish at the bottom, and confused in between. And the fundamentals often diverge from prices for LONG periods of time.