Market timing and Robert Campbell

[Diego Mamani]

It amazes me how bright scholars like Professor Shiller have less credibility than snake oil salesmen like Robert Campbell. His comparative advantage and greatest skill resides in being able to convince people that anybody can “get rich quick” with his system.

His book is self-published, which is not by itself a bad thing, though it hints that he didn’t pass the BS test of many publishers. I also read three reviews he wrote on Amazon.com: two were about books written by fellow “timers,” and one was on Lereah’s now infamous book. These reviews are full of grammar and spelling mistakes, which certainly detract from his credibility. (This shouldn’t matter, as his books are not precisely aimed at the highly educated).

His website states that he charges $95 for a half-hour consultation! Laughable! I guess this is all part of market psychology in boom and bust cycles: in boom periods we hear about “fool-proof systems to become a billionaire in real estate with no money down”. Now that we are in the down side of the cycle, shrewd people like Campbell want to sell “systems to time the market”.

This is no more laughable than someone telling you that he has a system to beat casinos in Las Vegas. If such “systems” existed to time the stock or RE markets, or to invest in RE with no money down, or to beat the casinos at their games, do you really think the systems’ authors would waste time “selling” their secrets when they could be making unlimited trillions for themselves?

[Chris Johnston]

Chris Johnston
iamafuturestrader.com

I begin by stating that everyone has the right to thier opinion, but here is my rebuttal to this.

The answers to the question about selling those secrets is yes they would. I have given some very valuable pieces of information out here about trading only to be challenged and mimicked about a few of them. Ironically, this is the exact reaction I expected and was somewhat of a trial balloon for me. I am now much less worried about revealing things. The reason for this is in the spirit of your message, most people will not follow it anyway because they think they know better.

This model is absolutely terriffic, it filters out alot of noise. Another reason people sell things like this is to “fill in the periods of underperformance in their method.” Systematic approaches to anything still have periods of under performance, and cash flows from other sources help smooth out the monthly income. It is the only reason I offer my services, because on balance it is very time consuming and frustrating to deal with the public in general.

I used a modified version of his model to time selling my property in Newport Beach at the exact high of the market. I have clients that pay me for access to timing trading signals that work, and yet some of them do not follow all of them. They hand pick some and disregard others, then call and ask questions.

You would be surprised at the questions I get some times, when the answers are always, just follow the system. People in general have to tinker with everything, so there is not in reality great risk of an edge being diminished by revealing it, sad but true.

It is human nature to be undisciplined and that greatly reduces the risk of revealing a great secret about something. I have done the research on each of the five categories and confirmed that they are in fact signinficant leading indicators of price. He also mentions interest rates as being alot less important than many other things, and this matches my research exactly. This was a surprising discovery when I found it 2 yrs ago. Ignore it if you wish, but it just gives me that much more of an edge over you when the next buy cycle comes up.

His book makes no such claim about being the ticket to riches, you must not have read the book. All it gives is a mechanical model to buying and selling. Most people would be much better served with rule based decsion making than all of these aribtrary things they come up with that they use to make decisions.

The only negative with Robert is that he is a little hyper, and that he has close relationships with the Anderson guys at UCLA. However, he is much more bearish than they are. He had a seminar this year with several great speakers one of whom specializes in PAT (Private Annuity Trust) transactions.

I guess if I have typos that will diminish my credibility in my post, so I hope I do not have any.

[zk]

I’ve been following Robert Campbell’s ideas for a while, and I agree with CJ that they are pretty solid.

Also, in everything I’ve read of his, in both seminars I went to, in his book, and in the few times I’ve talked to him, I’ve never heard or read anything like “get rich quick.”

As I’ve mentioned before, I did a great deal of research before deciding not to get back into the market. Robert Campbell’s methods/ideas were among the many I looked at, and among the most solid, in my opinion.

As far as his “His comparative advantage and greatest skill resides in being able to convince people that anybody can “get rich quick” with his system,” I was actually somewhat more impressed with his ideas than I was with his presentation. (Just a personal preference. His high-energy style appeals to me less than, say, the professor’s more easy-going, down-to-earth style.) The point being that I disagree with your statement; I think his ideas and methods are his comparative advantage, not his salesmanship.

I must admit, though, that I have noticed his frequent grammar and spelling errors, and that does sometimes give me pause.

[powayseller]

Although his system is not perfect, he brings attention to the fact that real estate is cyclical. Just like summer, fall, winter, spring, real estate goes up and down.

As far as writing the book, I think that only makes sense. Now he is in a Sell signal, so once he’s sold all his properties, what can he do to make money over the next few years? He can sell his books, give seminars. According to him, the next chance to make money will be at the bottom of the market, which is probably 5 years away he says.

[Author]

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