Today, we have received the following anonymous article comment, posted on another blog site. (Spelling has been corrected.)

Your analysis is flawless, but irrelevant. To make an assessment of any stock portfolio in ONE MONTH as opposed to several years is like trying to manage on bad data. The time frame is way too short. I have been with Fisher for almost four years and the results have been very acceptable as a long term investment. If you are not willing to see the kinds of short term temporary fluctuations in the market that you experienced, you should probably put your money in US Backed bonds. Our four year experience has yielded double digit compound annual growths which were right in line with our original goals.

The person who made this comment most obviously missed the point that I judged not the short term performance, but the methodology that contrary to Fisher Investments marketing claims is highly unlikely to protect investors during bear markets.

Previous four years have brought us a raging bull market. At times like this, making money is a snap. Bear markets, however, require a very different strategy. Switching between bull and bear modes is virtually impossible for a $45 Billion money manager, such as Fisher Investments, even if this would be the right thing to do for their clients. Remember that in December 2000, when Fisher Investments last went bearish, they only had $3 Billion under management.