January 15, 2010

Doug Casey: Stock Market Will Have A Big Fall This Year


Doug Casey is extremely bearish on stocks and he predicts a big fall this year:

Well, it's nothing but a gut feeling, but I think the stock market is riding for a big fall this year.

Everyone was afraid the world was going to come to an end a year ago, and it almost did. But governments all around the world stepped in and printed up trillions of their various currency units - it's not just the United States. And still, retail price inflation hasn't blossomed. It seems that governments are bent on keeping asset prices up to avert panic. They focus on controlling perception instead of fixing the problem. It stems from an economic version of the theory that all we need to fear is fear itself. As long as we have the right psychology, everything is going to be okay - total nonsense.

It's the Wile E. Coyote theory of economics. As long as you never look down after running off a cliff chasing the roadrunner, you can keep treading air. Unfortunately, although the power of positive thinking may help in many ways, it's of zero use if you continue living above your means and making stupid decisions.

My thinking about the stock market is this: corporations have done as "well" as they have mainly by cutting expenses. Laying people off, that sort of thing. So the bottom lines have not fallen as far as we might expect - but the top line has been hit. Revenues are falling for corporations across the board.

The world's financial system has to adjust to a new reality, one with lower levels of consumption and differing types of production. The legions of unemployed are not going to go back to work anytime soon, at least not doing anything like what they were doing before the bubble burst. The economy is going to continue deleveraging. There's going to be less debt to allow the purchase of all this stuff people have been buying, resulting in lower corporate earnings. So it's hard to see revenues doing anything but continue to spiral downwards for years to come.

I've been bearish on general equities for years, based on fundamentals. Whether they go up is no longer a reflection of prosperity - it's a reflection of how much money the government creates and where it goes. But I am feeling particularly strongly bearish on Wall Street right now. That's my gut. The social mood of the country is going to turn ugly and gloomy; people won't want to call their brokers and "get into the market."
in The Daily Crux

He says that he only wants to buy stocks again when dividend yields are in the 6 to 12% range and people have forgotten the market even exists.

Related ETF`s: SPDR S&P 500 (ETF) (SPY), ProShares UltraShort S&P500 (ETF) (SDS), ProShares UltraShort Dow30 (ETF) (DXD)

Douglas "Doug" Casey is an American-born free market economist, best-selling financial author, and international investor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of Casey Research, a provider of subscription financial analysis about specific market verticals that he has focused his investing career around, including natural resources/metals/mining, energy, commodities, and technology.

No comments: