Guru Grades

Tim Ord's Intermediate-Term Market Calls (Last Updated 2/13/09)

As suggested by a reader, we evaluate here the intermediate-term S&P 500 index calls of Tim Ord via MarketWeb since 1/20/06. Tim Ord is is president, editor and publisher of The Ord Oracle, "devoted to the practice of supply and demand trading" using "a new kind of charting program designed for showing supply and demand in the financial markets." His intermediate-term calls appear to be intended for an horizon of 30 to 90 calendar days. In reviewing these calls, we find that:

There are some gaps and imprecisions in Tim Ord's commentary archive at MarketWeb, necessitating some guesswork on exact dates and S&P 500 index levels (but the returns) for a few calls. There is a large gap between the 2/11/08 commentary (at which point he was long) and the 6/16/08 commentary (at which point he was flat). We are discontinuing tracking of new commentaries because we can no longer approximate dates of position changes. We are maintaining Tim Ord's 1/20/06-1/28/08 record as a limited test of his stock market timing prowess.

The following chart depicts the behavior of the S&P 500 index from the beginning of 2006 through 1/28/08, identifying the points at which Tim Ord recorded short, cover, long and close calls, as follows:

• As of 1/20/06, at the start of the test, he was short the S&P 500 index at 1261.
• About 6/12/06, he covered the short position at 1245 for a return of +1.3%.
• About 6/29/06, he took a long position at 1273.
• About 9/8/06, he sold the long position at 1311 for a return of +3.0%.
• Between 10/16/06-1/22/07, he took a short position at 1382.
• About 4/23/07, he covered the short position at 1481 for a return of -7.2%.
• About 8/6/07, he took a long position at 1472..
• About 8/27/07, he sold the long position at 1467 for a return of -0.4%.
• Between 9/17/06 and mid-October 2007, he took a short position at about 1562.
• About 10/26/07, he covered the short position at about 1533 for a return of +1.9%.
• About 11/28/07, he took a long position at 1469.
• About 1/4/08, he sold the long position at 1412 for a return of -3.9%.
• About 1/24/08, he took a long position at 1352.

On a cumulative basis, assuming return on cash while out of the market offsets trading costs, the cumulative return from trading the S&P 500 index based on Tim Ord's calls during 1/20/06-1/28/08 is -5.4%. An investor who bought and held the S&P 500 index over this same period has a return of +7.3%.

In summary, Tim Ord's intermediate-term S&P 500 index calls during 1/20/06-1/28/08 substantially underperformed the market. However, the small sample of calls does not support reliable inference about the accuracy of his method over the very long term.

The table below summarizes the commentary detail used to construct his recent S&P 500 index trading record.

See Guru Grades for a snapshot of the accuracy of various experts in predicting the direction of the U.S. stock market, including links to evaluations of the commentaries of other individual market pundits and gurus.