Mark Hulbert founded and ran the authoritative Hulbert Financial Digest, the independent source for financial newsletter performance evaluation. The HFD objectively tracked more than 160 investment newsletters and the 500 portfolios they recommend, using methodology developed by Hulbert when he began it in 1980. The HFD helped investors develop useful criteria for choosing from among investment strategies, and rated the risk, clarity and completeness of the advice contained in each newsletter.
Although Hulbert has discontinued the Hulbert Financial Digest, he continues to track newsletters’ real world performance and provide scoreboards ranking advisers, strategies and performance at Hulbertratings.com.
HFD ranks The Buyback Letter #5 for 5-year period, December 2004
2004 ranking: Hulbert rated The Buyback Letter #5
(out of 116 newsletters) for risk-adjusted returns among stock-picking
newsletters for the five-year period ending 12/31/2004, with
a gain of 13.9%. By comparison, the Wilshire 500 Total Return for
that period was -1.4%.
“A Tale of Two Strategies,” by Mark Hulbert; 3-4-03;
Marketwatch.com (writing about The Buyback Letter’s stellar
long-term record)
“Since Jan. 1, 1997, when the Hulbert Financial Digest began
tracking it, this service’s average model portfolio has produced
a 13 percent annualized return, in contrast to just 3.4 percent annualized
for the Wilshire 5000. That’s good enough to rank The Buyback
Letter in second place among all the newsletters the HFD has tracked
over the last 6-plus years.”
HFD ranks The Buyback Letter #1 for 5-year-period, March 2002
In March 2002 the Hulbert Financial Digest ranked The Buyback
Letter #1 for risk-adjusted returns among stock-picking newsletters
and #2 among all newsletters for the five-year period ending 12/31/2001.
The HFD began tracking The Buyback Letter in 1997. It became eligible
for Hulbert's long-term rankings five years later, in 2002.