Guru Grades
Tim Wood: You Have Been Warned! (Last Updated 1/1/09)
We evaluate here the market commentary of Tim Wood, as available via Financial Sense Online since April 2003. Tim Wood, who maintains the "Cycles News & Views" web site, derives his market outlook from "technical studies...based on his knowledge of both Market Cycles and Dow Theory." He considers that "these tools are overlooked and/or forgotten today when they are most needed." The table below lists highlights from this commentary and shows the performance of the S&P 500 index over the 5, 21, 63 and 254 trading days after the publication date for each item. Red plus (minus) signs to the right of specific items indicate those that the market has subsequently proven right (wrong). We conclude that:
- Tim Wood times the market using a combination of his interpretations of the Dow Theory and stock market cycle analysis.
- He was very slow to accept the viability of the market uptrend that began in early 2003 and has generally been skeptical of the subsequent advance. A reader responding to this skepticism would likely have underinvested and underperformed through 2007.
- Mr. Wood's forecasts are somtimes ambiguous.
- Based on subsequent stock market performance and our judgments about the accuracy of Tim Wood's market direction forecasts, his bottom-line advice about market direction has been right 45% of the time, which is a little below average. The forecast sample size for Mr. Wood is fairly large, as is our confidence in this conclusion.
In summary, Tim Wood's stock market forecasting accuracy since April 2003, generally focused on a long-term bull-versus-bear contest, is a little below average. Confidence in this conclusion is fairly high.
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.
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