Regarding Dennis Gartman

A colleague sent me a rhetorical question last week: How do you turn a really large pile of money into a really small pile of money? Answer: Have Dennis Gartman manage it.

Horizons introduced some ETFs based on the trading calls of Dennis Gartman's daily newsletter. For some reason Gartman is promoted by CNBC and Bloomberg, among others, as some kind of market guru. As it turns out, the ETFs based on his trading calls were referenced several times, including once by Business Insider, as being "a disaster."

As it turns out, in March this year, Horizons liquidated the main Gartman ETF:

Comments: Effective close of business 03/19/2013, ETF will be terminated and all unitholders of the ETF will receive the proceeds from the liquidation of the assets, less all liabilities and all expenses incurred in connection with the dissolution of the ETF.

Keep that in mind the next time you see Gartman on CNBC pontification about gold. In fact, I'm not the only one taking shots at guys like Gartman - who by the way is a seller of the newsletter he writes and has nothing to do with managing real money - Marc Faber last week issued a shot at all the so-called gold experts showing up on CNBC and Bloomberg with their bearish calls:

..there are many people out there, they never owned an ounce of gold in their lives. They were bearish about gold at $300, bearish about gold at $700, bearish about the stock market in 2009 when the S&P was at 666. Now, they are bullish about stocks and they are still bearish about gold. The commercial hedgers - these are professional miners, mining companies and people involved in gold trading. They have the lowest short exposure, since 2001 when gold was at $300. Similarly, in the silver market, the commercial hedgers, again, the professionals have the lowest short exposure since 2001. I would rather bet on the commercial miners, the commercial hedgers than on some forecaster who knows about the future of prices as little as I know. The only thing that I know is that I want to own some physical gold because I don't want all of my assets in financial assets.

Regarding Dennis Gartman, he reminds me of two old but very appropriate, time-honored quotes: "Big hat, no cattle" and "those that can, do; those that can't, try to tell others how to and seek to get paid for it."