In July 1996, the year of “irrational exuberance”, I predicted a stock market crash in August, 2009.

Thirteen years later, how do I feel now?

Many people think that the worst is over and that we can look forward to the next bull wave in the global markets.

There was similar sentiment in 2007, when I, along with approximately fifteen percent of the analysts worldwide, disagreed.

I disagree again and stick with my original prediction, which I published nationally in our country back then.

The only correction I would like to make is that I could be a few weeks early. With six weeks to go, I now think that it could possibly be the end of August 2009 or possibly early September. Otherwise, take a seat with me and watch again how the planets affect the markets.

For more regarding my predictions of the semi-crash of 2008 ten months before the event, as well as a the flu pandemic of 2009/2010 and the major war coming up in 2010, please visit http://www.luckydays.tv/stock-market-predictions-for-2007-2008.html and http://www.luckydays.tv/coming-stock-market-crash.html

I have disseminated this information for well over a decade now at my own cost in the hope that others may also be amazed by the influence of the planets in our lives.

Scientists, please have a look beyond your newspaper column assessments of the subject.

Thank you.
Adrian

The markets generally drop noticeably in the 10 days leading into the dates given below.
If they haven’t yet dropped by this date, they often drop exactly on the date or or the day after.
Consider Selling the markets short up to 10 days before these dates.
(The 19 October 1987 crash and several others have begun on a Sun-Jupiter opposition)

Date (d/m/y) Severity Rating Date (d/m/y) Severity Rating

21/04/1970 ****** 28/11/2000 ****
23/05/1971 ****** 01/01/2002 *******
24/06/1972 ******* 02/02/2003 *****
26/07/1973 *** 03/03/2004 *****
05/09/1974 *** 04/04/2005 ******
13/10/1975 ***** 04/05/2006 ***
18/11/1976 *** 05/06/2007 ****
22/12/1977 ***** 09/07/2008 *******
24/01/1979 *** 14/08/2009 ********** (Friday)
24/02/1980 ***** 18/09/2010 ***
26/03/1981 *** 28/10/2011 ******** (Friday)
25/04/1982 *** 02/12/2012 **
27/05/1983 **** 08/01/2014 ***
29/06/1984 **** 06/02/2015 *****
04/08/1985 ** 08/03/2016 ****
10/09/1986 **** 07/04/2017 ********
18/10/1987 ********** (Thursday) 08/05/2018 **
23/11/1988 **** 10/06/2019 ***
27/12/1989 ***** 14/07/2020 ***
28/01/1991 *** 19/08/2021 **
28/02/1992 ** 26/09/2022 *****
30/03/1993 *** 02/11/2023 *******
30/04/1994 *** 07/12/2024 ****
01/06/1995 *** 09/01/2026 ***
04/07/1996 ******* 10/02/2027 ****
09/08/1997 **** 12/03/2028 **
16/09/1998 * 12/04/2029 ****
23/10/1999 * 13/05/2030 **
14/06/2031 *****
19/07/2032 ****
24/08/2033 **
01/10/2034 ***
07/11/2035 ******

l

But I would equate stock picking in a market where the broader economic forces are pointing to a steep decline as the financial equivalent to taking a stroll through a minefield. You could be perfectly OK and find plenty of valuable stuff laying around during your stroll across no-man’s land. Or you can step on a mine and be completely ripped apart limb from limb in a gigantic explosion.

I just parked my tax return money into an investment savings account earning a few measly percentage points while I wait for continuing bad economic news and poor earnings reports to roll in. But at least a 3% gain is much better than a 30% loss, which I took on a lot of the stocks which I didn’t bother to sell when things first started to turn south – and still continue to hold onto today, for that matter… I just don’t think we’ve seen all of the bad economic news yet. I think there’s a lot more to come. Like the credit swap defaults in the USA, which I hear is actually an order of magnitude larger than the sub-prime mess in the USA and in that case nobody even knows who owns what either.

I would extend this argument to any economic forecasting including interest rate predictions…

Mike

I’ll look into adding comment notification by email.

MikeH: I think if we are careful to avoid overpaying for any asset class by simply not putting new money in when valuations are not reasonable, we are likely to do okay.

Michael: Like Brad notes, long-term stock market predictions that are vaguely right can be attempted. Bogle (Buffett himself used a similar method in a Fortune article in 1999) estimates long-term equity returns based on initial dividend yield, earnings growth rate and change in valuation. Of course, the last variable is impossible to predict because who knows what multiples investors will be willing to pay 10 or 20 years in the future.

Regarding individual stocks, I think there are talented stock pickers out there. It just takes too much time, effort and rationality for me to be one.

I haven’t figured out how to do long-term predictions for either the general market or individual stocks, but I haven’t rule out the possibility that some people can do it. If Buffett were challenged to name 10 small cap stocks that will significantly outperform the market, I bet he could get 7 or 8 of them right.

In predicting future climate, climatologists use scenarios, which are based on assumptions about greenhouse gas emissions, solar activity, natural cycles, etc., and predictions of future climate are always scenario-dependent. Predicting weather is a completely different process, and accuracy declines rapidly the further out you make your predictions.

If you invest in a well-balanced basket of low cost Index funds, conventional wisdom holds that over the long run – there is NO bad time to buy.

Having said that, I personally wait for those 200+ point plunge days to buy more (index funds) to “backfill” my position.

I know it amounts to “timed dollar cost averaging” and carries the risk of opportunity lost if the index shoots up, but as long as you start with a diversified basket, I think the risk/reward trade-off is acceptable.

PS: The reverse does not hold – I do NOT sell on 200+ increases in the index. I buy and hold for the long term.