The Risk Reducer vs. the Gurus

An independent firm, CXO Advisory, spent eight years grading 68 famous market forecasters — the magazine names, the TV regulars, the newsletter legends — on 6,582 dated, public calls. The collective accuracy came in at 46.9%. Worse than a coin flip. The man in last place was right one time in five.

So we ran an experiment. We took their most famous dated market calls — the crash warnings, the all-clears — and at each exact date we asked one dumb, mechanical question: what did the Risk Reducer say that day? It doesn't forecast. It doesn't read the news. It watches the market's own behavior and says worth the risk or not. Here's how the tape scored both sides.

The 68 gurus, all calls

46.9%

accurate across 6,582 graded forecasts
(CXO Advisory, 2005–2012)

The famous calls below

41%

the gurus were right on these 17 marquee calls

The Risk Reducer, same calls

82%

one mechanical read, same 17 dates

The honest asterisk, up front. This isn't a perfectly fair fight, and we won't pretend it is. The gurus were trying to forecast — to see the future. The Risk Reducer doesn't forecast anything; it reacts to what the market itself is doing right now. That's the whole point: reacting to what's actually happening beat predicting what might. And it lost two of these outright — Faber at the October 2007 top and Russell on a mid-2008 bounce, where the warning hadn't fired yet and the signal was still saying “worth it” days before a leg down. We left those losses in the table. A scoreboard that only shows the wins belongs to the other guys.

Who said it	When	The call	Next 12 mo S&P 500	Risk Reducer said…	Who served you
Marc Faber	2007-10-09	“Money-printing won't save stocks”	-36%	Worth The Risk	The guru
Bill Fleckenstein	2007-11-12	“A crash is far more likely than in years”	-36%	Not Worth The Risk	Both
Abby Joseph Cohen	2007-12-04	“S&P to 1675 by end-2008”	-39%	Not Worth The Risk	Risk Reducer
Abby Joseph Cohen	2008-06-10	“S&P to 1500 by year-end”	-29%	Not Worth The Risk	Risk Reducer
Bill Fleckenstein	2008-07-07	“Decline far worse than most think”	-28%	Not Worth The Risk	Both
Richard Russell	2008-07-31	“Long-term Dow trend now down”	-20%	Not Worth The Risk	Both
Gary Shilling	2008-09-11	“Worse is yet to come”	-14%	Not Worth The Risk	Both
Richard Russell	2008-09-18	“Go to cash; major losses ahead”	-8%	Not Worth The Risk	Both
Jim Cramer	2008-11-30	“Put sidelined money back to work”	+39%	Not Worth The Risk	The guru
Gary Shilling	2009-02-16	“Premature to buy; target S&P 600”	+42%	Not Worth The Risk	Neither
Richard Russell	2010-02-01	“Retest the March-2009 low; zero stocks”	+20%	Worth The Risk	Risk Reducer
Robert Prechter	2010-06-17	“Next decline bigger than 2008”	+16%	Not Worth The Risk	Neither
Robert Prechter	2010-07-15	“Stocks much lower by year-end”	+22%	Not Worth The Risk	Neither
Marc Faber	2011-08-02	“The bear market is starting”	+12%	Not Worth The Risk	Neither
Robert Prechter	2011-11-10	“A major decline is kicking off”	+13%	Not Worth The Risk	Neither
Gary Shilling	2012-08-06	“S&P will fall to 800”	+24%	Worth The Risk	Risk Reducer
Marc Faber	2012-10-15	“Buy anything 20% lower in 6-9 months”	+23%	Worth The Risk	Risk Reducer

On these 17 famous dated calls, the gurus were right 41% of the time and the Risk Reducer 82%. It does not see the future. It reads the tape and gets out of the way. Sometimes that’s the same thing.

The full report card — and what they charge

All 67 forecasters we’ve logged of the 68 CXO Advisory graded, best to worst, beside their published subscription price where we could find one (17 of 67). Accuracy above 55% in green, below 45% in red — a coin flip is 50%, the group averaged 46.9%. They charged anywhere from nothing to about $1,700 a year to be right less than half the time. We’ll be $19.99 a month, and we publish when we’re wrong. Prices as of 2026; (closed) = service discontinued.

#	Forecaster	Accuracy	Graded	Charges
1	David Nassar	68.2%	44 calls	—
2	Ken Fisher	66.4%	120 calls	—
3	Jack Schannep	65.6%	63 calls	—
4	David Dreman	64.4%	45 calls	—
5	James Oberweis	62.9%	35 calls	—
6	Steve Sjuggerud	62.1%	54 calls	$199/yr
7	Cabot Market Letter	60.4%	50 calls	$99/yr
8	Louis Navellier	60.0%	152 calls	$199/yr
9	Jason Kelly	59.7%	126 calls	—
10	Dan Sullivan	59.1%	115 calls	$290/yr
11	John Buckingham	58.8%	17 calls	—
12	Richard Moroney	57.1%	56 calls	—
13	Aden Sisters	55.8%	40 calls	—
14	Jon Markman	55.3%	36 calls	—
15	Carl Swenlin	54.9%	128 calls	—
16	Bob Doll	54.7%	161 calls	Free
17	Paul Tracy	53.8%	52 calls	—
18	Bob Brinker	53.3%	44 calls	$300/yr (closed)
19	Mark Arbeter	53.2%	230 calls	—
20	Gary Kaltbaum	53.1%	144 calls	—
21	Robert Drach	52.6%	19 calls	—
22	Don Luskin	52.0%	201 calls	—
23	Laszlo Birinyi	51.9%	27 calls	—
24	Tobin Smith	50.2%	281 calls	no retail
25	James Dines	50.0%	39 calls	—
26	Ben Zacks	50.0%	32 calls	—
27	Doug Kass	49.2%	186 calls	$600/yr
28	Richard Rhodes	48.8%	42 calls	—
29	Bernie Schaeffer	48.8%	81 calls	$1,747/yr
30	Clif Droke	48.6%	100 calls	—
31	Stephen Leeb	48.3%	27 calls	—
32	S&P Outlook	48.3%	145 calls	—
33	Carl Futia	48.2%	98 calls	—
34	Charles Biderman	47.9%	48 calls	—
35	Trading Wire	47.8%	69 calls	—
36	Don Hays	47.1%	85 calls	—
37	James Stewart	47.0%	115 calls	—
38	Richard Band	46.9%	31 calls	—
39	Jim Cramer — tested above	46.8%	62 calls	$399/yr
40	Gary D. Halbert	46.4%	93 calls	—
41	Dennis Slothower	45.6%	145 calls	—
42	Bill Cara	45.6%	208 calls	—
43	Gary Savage	45.0%	134 calls	—
44	Marc Faber — tested above	44.6%	164 calls	$300/yr
45	Jeremy Grantham	44.2%	40 calls	Free
46	Jim Jubak	43.4%	144 calls	$199/yr
47	Martin Goldberg	43.1%	109 calls	—
48	Price Headley	42.0%	352 calls	—
49	Linda Schurman	41.4%	57 calls	—
50	Donald Rowe	40.6%	69 calls	—
51	Igor Greenwald	40.5%	37 calls	—
52	Nadeem Walayat	40.5%	67 calls	—
53	Bob Hoye	40.0%	57 calls	—
54	John Mauldin	39.9%	211 calls	Free
55	Jim Puplava	39.5%	43 calls	—
56	Comstock Partners	37.9%	224 calls	—
57	Bill Fleckenstein — tested above	37.3%	148 calls	—
58	Gary Shilling — tested above	36.6%	41 calls	$335/yr
59	Richard Russell — tested above	36.5%	168 calls	$300/yr (closed)
60	Mike Paulenoff	35.7%	12 calls	—
61	Abby Joseph Cohen — tested above	35.1%	56 calls	—
62	Peter Eliades	34.5%	29 calls	—
63	Steven Jon Kaplan	32.1%	104 calls	—
64	Curt Hesler	32.1%	97 calls	—
65	Robert McHugh	28.6%	132 calls	—
66	Steve Saville	23.7%	35 calls	—
67	Robert Prechter — tested above	20.8%	24 calls	$1,692/yr

One honest thing, before you go.

We just spent a whole page grading everyone else’s record and price tag — so it’s only fair we say this out loud: this time next year, ours might be the signal stinking up the joint. Maybe one of these names catches fire, becomes the new path to riches, and we’re the cautionary tale. If that day comes, you’ll find us right here — same desk, same cheap coffee — laughing at ourselves and shrugging: guys, markets are hard. That’s the whole job. Anybody who tells you different is selling something. (We’re selling something too — just not that.)

We don't predict. We react — the day it changes.

The gurus go on television. The Risk Reducer just tells you, the day its read flips, whether the tape is worth the risk. About a coffee a week.

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