Mark Hulbert

Mark J. Hulbert is a financial analyst and journalist who monitors and reports on the performance of investment newsletters.

Early life and education

Hulbert born in Kansas in 1955. His father was a professor of botany at Kansas State University. Hulbert graduated in philosophy from Haverford College in 1977 and from the University of Oxford in 1979.

Hulbert Financial Digest

With financing from James Davidson and William Bonner, Hulbert launched Hulbert Financial Digest in September 1980 and it grew to 14,000 subscribers by 1985. The idea of the Digest was to track the performance of investment newsletters from the perspective of actual subscribers, including the timing and specificity of the buy/sell information they receive and the commission and spread costs they incur. By 1988, he was rating 125 newsletters for clarity (i.e., specific, actionable buy/sell recommendations) and risk-adjusted performance. He also calculates how much of the performance is due to picking stocks with good prospects and how much due to market timing.

Hulbert admits that his newsletter has no value to a hypothetical emotionless investor: "Simply put, the odds are overwhelming that — over the long term — you will make more money by buying and holding an index fund." But real investors are "...unable to hold an index fund through a bear market, and by selling near the bottom they fail to realize ... [the] theoretical longterm potential." In contrast, he claims real investors are "...likely to make more money ... by following strategies that are statistically inferior ... but which are psychologically superior..." because the investor will follow their chosen advisor newsletter rigorously.

The final issue of the newsletter was published in February 2016, with Hulbert noting "In today’s world ... awash as it is in Big Data, [the newsletter] seems to be less needed. That, at least, is the judgment of the market." He continues to write columns for the MarketWatch website.

He also publishes the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which Hulbert says "reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timers tracked". HSNSI is a contrarian indicator: if it is high, he views the outlook for stocks as poor. Conversely, when it is low, his outlook is good. The predictive power of the Index has been disputed by CXO Advisory Group.

Hulbert Interactive

In 2004, Hulbert launched Hulbert Interactive, a website for interactive research into investment newsletters and advisors.

The Hulbert Financial Digest Inc.

The company associated with the Digest and interactive website (The Hulbert Financial Digest, Inc.) was acquired by CBS MarketWatch in April 2002, which in turn was acquired by Dow Jones in 2005. Dow Jones was acquired by News Corp. in 2007. Hulbert has been editor and writer throughout.

Books

He authored Interlock: The Untold Story of American Banks, Oil Interests, the Shah's Money, Debts and Astounding Connections Between Them and several editions of The Hulbert guide to financial newsletters.

With Eric Meltzer, he edited Constructive Approaches to the Foreign Debt Dilemma, a collection of papers presented at a seminar of the Taxpayers' Foundation held on September 21, 1983, in Washington DC.