Before substack, and even before the internet, fund managers have always liked to read newsletters. Perhaps the two most famous of these old school newsletter writers were Dennis Gartman and Fred Hickey. Gartman wrote the Gartman Letter, and Fred Hickey writes the High Tech Strategist. I never subscribed to the Gartman Letter, but it was not difficult to get a copy, and Gartman basically lived on CNBC, so his opinions were easy to find. Perhaps Gartman’s greatest contribution to finance was his trading rules - which I have filched off the internet and reproduce below.
If Gartman has a problem, it was that he was very reactive to market moves, and tended to have tight stops. He would often buy tops, and sell bottoms. He probably became the most popular “contra” in the market. A contra is someone who reliably gets market moves wrong - so doing the opposite of their market moves it reliably profitable. I often would be filled with dread when my positions would align with Gartman views, and delighted when he cut those positions.
Fred Hickey who writes the High-Tech Strategist is quite different. His strategy tended to be buy and hold. I did pay for his newsletter, but what was odd was that despite the name, more than half of his newsletter became dedicated to precious metal investing, particularly gold. Fred Hickey has been very bearish on tech for a long time. In particular he had a bearish view on Nvidia - based mainly on its 90% drawdown during the dot-com bust. It also fell 80% during the GFC. Obviously, Nvidia is no longer the same company it was. Even more obviously, being bearish on Nvidia has been a huge mistake - probably even worse than being bearish Tesla, which was a common opinion not so long ago.
Lately, I have been suffering from my own Gartman/Hickey like moment.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Capital Flows and Asset Markets to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
