Market Timers Hall Of Fame

For the convenience of my readers, I have compiled a complete list of every market timer in American history who has demonstrated the ability to earn a higher return than the ignorant yahoo who just gets into the market and stays in.  To qualify, these timers had to meet ONLY ONE of the following criteria:

(1) They operated a fund with a publicly verifiable record whose principal strategy was to vary the allocation between stocks and other investments, earning a return far enough above the market averages for a long enough period of time to have a less-than-5% chance of being the result of random luck.  Those running multiple funds must be evaluated based on the combined results, and not merely the one that worked out best.

(2) They operated a timing service with a publicly verifiable record, earning a return after reasonable estimates of expenses far enough above the market averages for a long enough period of time to have a less-than-5% chance of being the result of random luck.

(3) They regularly made pronouncements on the future direction of the market that can be publicly verified, and those following EVERY call of theirs would have, after estimating reasonable expenses, earned a return far enough above the market averages for a long enough period of time to have a less-than-5% chance of being the result of random luck.

That's it.  The rules prohibit the retroactive calculations of what a hypothetical strategy would have produced in the past: those claiming the ability to successfully time the market must have actually demonstrated their ability through the subsequent results of actions and public recommendations.  Those who predicted a market downturn every year from 1995 through 1999 don't get credit for saying the same thing at the start of 2000, and those predicting the market would probably go up at the start of every year since 1975 (that would be me), don't get credit for having been right most of the time, since they would only have earned the market average returns.

Okay, here's the complete list:

Let's hear a round of applause for all the members of the Market Timers Hall of Fame!