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Harry Dent appeared on the Fox business tv show 'Your World with Neil Cavuto' this past Friday 3/21. He is adamantly forcasting a major bear market starting in a Month or two, taking the Dow down well below 6000 and lasting for years. !! Anyone here follow him ? or can give an opnion on the accuracy of his previous forcasts Thanks Ralph
Harry Dent is extremely successful at promoting himself; he is far less successful at promoting wealth accumulation based on his often flawed forecasts.
Overall, Dent suffers from an abysmal forecasting record. He has a few random successes to his credit, but those few lucky projections have been overpowered by more than a few really dismal calls.
His basic approach in the past has been grounded in demographics. To oversimplify, from his perspective, more folks equate to a rising GDP growth rate and better market performance. His demographic analyses incorporate a lagging factor based on age. His data show that sometime around age a little North of 50, a person peaks in his spending and productivity levels. His modeling includes this age dependency adjustment. All his analyses seem to incorporate heavy weighting to population changes.
He has published numerous books that are closely coupled to this simplistic concept. I own a few of them. They are good reading and logically presented. I believe he is just too focused on a single market parameter. Investing is not that easy.
Dent captures a lot of media attention because of his outlandish, outlier-like predictions. I suspect he purposely adopts this marketing tactic. I imagine that he has earned far more from his book sales than from his personal investments. It is dubious that his clients profit from his outsized predictions.
Dent ran a mutual fund in the early 2000s. It was called Demographic Trends Fund. He abandoned that venture in 2005.after dissipating over half of the fund’s assets.
More recently, he projected severe equity market downturns in both 2012 and 2013. These failed predictions give further evidence of his checkered (mostly black) forecasting follies. He is surely consistent, again projecting painful downturns in 2014 and beyond. I suppose mostly because of stagnant population growth worldwide. At some point, he is likely to be randomly right.
I personally do not trust his forecasts whatsoever. These days I’m more amused than worried when he makes his usual negative prediction. His track record is surely not inspiring great confidence. In my opinion, accepting and acting on his advice and forecasts puts your portfolio at high risk. Once again, buyer beware.
Harry Dent.........He is adamantly forcasting a major bear market starting in a Month or two, taking the Dow down well below 6000 and lasting for years. !! Anyone here follow him ? or can give an opnion on the accuracy of his previous forcasts Thanks Ralph
You have to be a "nut" to forecast a major bear market Starting In A Month Or Two! How can he say it will start in a month or two? That's just not a reasonable thing to do. I can understand that he has studied demographics and population trends. That's all good. And having a theory that due to demographics and population trends, the market cannot remain at its current level, because less people are working, the population is aging, retirees don't stimulate the economy as much, etc, etc........That could be the basis of a very reasonable longer term bearish outlook. But to say that the effects of all of this will play itself out in a major way starting in a month or two is just nuts.
You asked, "can give an opnion on the accuracy of his previous forcasts"........
I read what Wiki had to say about this guy. He has predicted huge run ups in the market, which didn't happen, and he has predicted major bear markets that so far haven't happened. He's been wrongly super bullish at times and wrongly super bearish at times. I would not follow this guy's advice!
If you want to read an intelligent and reasonable person who has a bearish outlook, read what Jeremy Grantham has to say. Or John Hussman, who is very bearish, but he's not a nut like this guy is.
Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn occasionally. Mr. Dent's recent book (now, what, two years old now?) said essentially the same thing. Sort of like Mr. Hussman. Both men are very interesting to read and listen to, but both have been wrong for so long and with such awful consequences to people who follow their advice. They could both be right at some point, but predicting WHEN such a disaster will occur is especially questionable. I do not know about others, but our crystal ball has been in the shop for repairs since the internet made information distribution virtually instant.
I do agree that this period will not end well, but I don't agree with Dent's reasoning. Additionally, Carl Icahn just noted on CNBC that:
*ICAHN SEES MAJOR SELL DOWN OF MARKET COMING *ICAHN CALLS MARKET ARTIFICIAL BECAUSE OF FED POLICY
Honestly, I don't really care all that much about either because what I want to own is really what I want to own and not really going to time it any more. However, if you are concerned about short/medium term movements, I'd be much more concerned with Icahn noting that than Dent's discussion of demographics.
During market sell-offs now I go through positions and ask myself if I want to sell. If nothing has changed about the company, I don't do anything.
That's really where I'm kind of at. I go through position-by-position and ask, "Has anything changed?" If no, then do nothing.
Was going to drop or trim a little speculative company I own called Monitise when the market sold off recently. Stopped, realized nothing had changed, kept it, today Mastercard is investing in it (Visa and Visa Europe already own over 12%.)
Comments
https://www.google.com/search?q=Harry+Dent&oq=Harry+Dent&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8
Harry Dent is extremely successful at promoting himself; he is far less successful at promoting wealth accumulation based on his often flawed forecasts.
Overall, Dent suffers from an abysmal forecasting record. He has a few random successes to his credit, but those few lucky projections have been overpowered by more than a few really dismal calls.
His basic approach in the past has been grounded in demographics. To oversimplify, from his perspective, more folks equate to a rising GDP growth rate and better market performance. His demographic analyses incorporate a lagging factor based on age. His data show that sometime around age a little North of 50, a person peaks in his spending and productivity levels. His modeling includes this age dependency adjustment. All his analyses seem to incorporate heavy weighting to population changes.
He has published numerous books that are closely coupled to this simplistic concept. I own a few of them. They are good reading and logically presented. I believe he is just too focused on a single market parameter. Investing is not that easy.
Dent captures a lot of media attention because of his outlandish, outlier-like predictions. I suspect he purposely adopts this marketing tactic. I imagine that he has earned far more from his book sales than from his personal investments. It is dubious that his clients profit from his outsized predictions.
Dent ran a mutual fund in the early 2000s. It was called Demographic Trends Fund. He abandoned that venture in 2005.after dissipating over half of the fund’s assets.
More recently, he projected severe equity market downturns in both 2012 and 2013. These failed predictions give further evidence of his checkered (mostly black) forecasting follies. He is surely consistent, again projecting painful downturns in 2014 and beyond. I suppose mostly because of stagnant population growth worldwide. At some point, he is likely to be randomly right.
I personally do not trust his forecasts whatsoever. These days I’m more amused than worried when he makes his usual negative prediction. His track record is surely not inspiring great confidence. In my opinion, accepting and acting on his advice and forecasts puts your portfolio at high risk. Once again, buyer beware.
Best Wishes.
How can he say it will start in a month or two? That's just not a reasonable thing to do. I can understand that he has studied demographics and population trends. That's all good. And having a theory that due to demographics and population trends, the market cannot remain at its current level, because less people are working, the population is aging, retirees don't stimulate the economy as much, etc, etc........That could be the basis of a very reasonable longer term bearish outlook. But to say that the effects of all of this will play itself out in a major way starting in a month or two is just nuts.
You asked, "can give an opnion on the accuracy of his previous forcasts"........
I read what Wiki had to say about this guy. He has predicted huge run ups in the market, which didn't happen, and he has predicted major bear markets that so far haven't happened. He's been wrongly super bullish at times and wrongly super bearish at times. I would not follow this guy's advice!
If you want to read an intelligent and reasonable person who has a bearish outlook, read what Jeremy Grantham has to say. Or John Hussman, who is very bearish, but he's not a nut like this guy is.
*ICAHN SEES MAJOR SELL DOWN OF MARKET COMING
*ICAHN CALLS MARKET ARTIFICIAL BECAUSE OF FED POLICY
Honestly, I don't really care all that much about either because what I want to own is really what I want to own and not really going to time it any more. However, if you are concerned about short/medium term movements, I'd be much more concerned with Icahn noting that than Dent's discussion of demographics.
During market sell-offs now I go through positions and ask myself if I want to sell. If nothing has changed about the company, I don't do anything.
That's really where I'm kind of at. I go through position-by-position and ask, "Has anything changed?" If no, then do nothing.
Was going to drop or trim a little speculative company I own called Monitise when the market sold off recently. Stopped, realized nothing had changed, kept it, today Mastercard is investing in it (Visa and Visa Europe already own over 12%.)