Harry Dent Predicted ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Crash by 2020. What Now?

Harry S. Dent Jr., the “Contrarian’s Contrarian,” who for years was predicting a cataclysmic market crash late 2017 to early 2020, isn’t gloating. But clearly his mode is I-told-you-so. Recently, he’d warned that the worrisome debt and financial assets bubble would blow in March. Then came “the perfect trigger”: coronavirus, which proved his forecast correct and threw America into “an instant depression,” he argues in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.

The U.S. is going through “detox for a crack-addicted economy,” Dent insists, citing a bubble that’s been building to an “orgasmic phase” for some time.

The son of a strategy advisor to three presidents, including Richard Nixon, Dent, 67, accurately predicted Japan’s 1989 economic collapse, the 2000 dot-com bust and the populist wave that thrust Donald Trump into the presidency.

In two June and November 2017 interviews with this reporter, Dent forecast that an economic and market catastrophe would strike in early 2020.

Over more than 30 years, some of Dent’s major predictions have been right on, others notably off-key. To forecast boom or bust, he uses a variety of cycles, including those focused on demographics and geopolitical forces.

Under his HS Dent Publishing, he puts out a monthly newsletter, “The HS Dent Forecast,” co-authored by Rodney Johnson, and free daily insight “e-letters.”

In the interview, he predicts that the recent stock market rebound will persist for a month, then peak in, perhaps, August. By October, the U.S. will be in the throes of deep economic decline, he says.

Dent also serves up advice on investing in stocks now and in the near future, plus his outlook for economic recovery (let go of that “V-shaped” idea).

Often called more “master marketer” than financial guru, the prolific author’s books include “Zero Hour: Turn the Greatest Political and Financial Upheaval in Modern History to Your Advantage,” written with Andrew Pancholi (2017) and “The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017-2019 Can Make You Rich” (2017).

His newest title — in paperback and on Kindle — is “What To Do When the Bubble Pops: Personal and Business Strategies for the Coming Economic Winter” (G&D Media, March 19, 2020).

A mutual fund and an exchange-traded fund that Dent launched closed in the early-to-mid 2000s, but he plans to open a new mutual fund in Australia this June. It will favor certain “seasons” of investment.

“Since 2008, we’ve been in the winter season, in which high-quality bonds do best. But we’re moving into the spring season, which will kill bonds,” he says. In the U.S, the next season will support nursing homes more than starter homes, he forecasts.

ThinkAdvisor interviewed Dent on April 24. He was speaking from his year-round base in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Among the predictions: a real estate bust is en route, gold won’t be a safe haven this time and President Trump may grow so infuriated if he finds himself behind that he’ll wash his hands of the race for re-election.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: How would you characterize what’s happened in the economy and markets?

HARRY DENT JR.: This is detox for a crack-addicted economy with debt and crazy financial asset prices. The coronavirus was the perfect trigger. Money printing will stop most things in its tracks temporarily, but it didn’t stop the virus. We’ve basically been blowing hot air on a cold economy. Now we’ve gone into an instant depression.

Many consider the coronavirus catastrophe to be a black swan event. Do you agree?

The pandemic was a black swan, but there’s nothing black swan about the bubble we’ve been in. Bubbles build exponentially; then you have a final orgasmic phase, which I warned of last fall when the repo crisis erupted. It was a sign that, oops, something isn’t working: The banking system isn’t that healthy.

What pattern do you see for the recovery?

It’s going to be U-shaped. Anybody that says it will be V-shaped is an idiot. That isn’t possible. We have post-traumatic stress disorder — we won’t come out of this and just get back to normal. Everybody is scared. Everybody knows that the virus can come back.

When will the recovery start, as you see it?

The economy will get healthy and grow again once you deleverage debt and financial assets. That will clear the decks and get rid of zombie banks, zombie companies and unproductive loans. The emerging world is going to pull us out of this because most of the developed world won’t be growing that fast.

Stocks generally have been rebounding. Up ahead, what will we see in the markets? 

Stocks are rebounding with all the stimulus and because investors can see that the virus is receding. This rebound will last a month. Markets probably won’t go up a lot more. They’ll probably correct some off and on, and I’m guessing that in August, they may peak. That may last until October.

Then what?

When we get over the short-term problem — the virus — several months later we’ll fall right back into a deeper recession. The unemployment rate will [rise] to 10% or 15%. So when a lot of businesses don’t come back and the economy weakens again, unemployment will end up at depression-level 20% or higher.

What should investors do now about their portfolios?