As we approach 2024, a bold economist is issuing a grim forecast for the markets in the upcoming year.
“Since 2009, this has been 100% artificial, unprecedented money printing and deficits; $27 trillion over 15 years, to be exact. This is off the charts, 100% artificial, which means we’re in a dangerous state,” Harry Dent told Fox News Digital. “I think 2024 is going to be the biggest single crash year we’ll see in our lifetimes.”
“I’m the guy that’s praying for a crash while everybody else is not. We need to get back down to normal, and we need to send a message to central banks,” he continued. “This should be a lesson I don’t think we’ll ever revisit. I don’t think we’ll ever see a bubble for any of our lifetimes again.”
Dent, with a career primarily focused on analyzing proprietary research, attributes his contrarian prediction to overvalued markets and excessive stimulus spending.
Despite recent optimistic projections, he stands by his assertion that an impending “everything bubble” will collapse next year. Market bubbles in history have typically seen a swift surge in stock prices followed by a sharp decline.
The economist highlighted that the genesis of this bubble traces back to late 2021, following the peak of the COVID pandemic, and initial indicators emerged in 2022 when Nasdaq experienced a 38% decline. The forthcoming year is expected to usher in the “B wave” of the impending crash.
“The Roaring 20s bubble was not an everything bubble. [A] real estate barely bubble [in 2008], it was stocks and urban real estate that bubbled,” Dent said. “This is the one time I’m telling you, do not listen to your financial adviser. Things are not going to come back to normal in a few years. We may never see these levels again. And this crash is not going to be a correction. It’s going to be more in the ’29 to ’32 level. And anybody who sat through that would have shot their stockbroker.”
“That’s an 86% crash in the S&P and a 92% crash in the NASDAQ. And crypto, it’s going to be 96%. So that is a big deal,” the economist added. “And real estate, by the way, is only projected, by me, to go back to its 2012 lows… but that’s a 50% crash for the average house, which went down 34% in the last crash, more than the Great Depression, more than any time in history. That is what’s going to hurt people the most.”
Disapproving of investors participating in a year-end market rally, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average achieved its third record close last week by surpassing 37,000, Dent advised Americans to “step aside.”
“If I’m right, it is going to be the biggest crash of our lifetime, most of it happening in 2024. You’re going to see it start and be more obvious by May,” the analyst stressed. “So if you just get out for six to 12 months and stuff stays at the highest valuation history, maybe you miss a little more gains if I’m wrong. If I’m right, you’re going to save massive losses and be able to reinvest a year or year-and-a-half from now at unbelievably low prices and magnify your gains beyond compare.”
“We’re still up there. We’re still near the highs, and that shouldn’t have happened. So you’ve gotten a gift… you’ve gotten this rebound where you get a second chance to get out near where you could have before. Boy, [that’s] lucky, lucky, lucky.”
In their yearly forecasts, policymakers factored in the possibility of three rate cuts, anticipating a decline in the federal funds rate to a range of 4.4% to 4.9%, compared to the existing 5.25% to 5.50%. Assessing the Federal Reserve’s rate path, Dent contended that a smooth economic transition is “unlikely.”
He posited that persistent disinflation could evolve into deflation, marking the first occurrence since the 1930s, and expressed the view that the central bank grapples with a “fragile” economy.
