Friday, September 25, 2009

Marc Faber Says Stocks Have Likely Peaked for 2009

Mr. Faber is early, in our humble opinion, but probably not enough to matter in the grand scheme of things. In our September 15 post "Sign of a top? MarketBeat Asks: "Is the “Bear Market Rally” Theory Dead?" I said:
Nah, not yet. Maybe S&P 1125 (currently 1065), sometime in October....
The S&P closed yesterday at 1050 and change.

Back on March 3 we relayed a February 23 prognostication by Marc Faber that we had been sitting on as the market declined: "Marc Faber: Stocks Poised to Rally". It turns out he was early by 14 days. We mentioned this call again on March 10, the day after the market bottomed:
I'll go with Faber on the timeline, at least three, maybe six weeks before we see a change in direction, i.e. more than a one day move.....
and reiterated it that Friday, March 13 in "Markets: Where Do We Go From Here?".
The point of this longer than usual intro is: We listen to Herr Doktor.
From Bloomberg:
Stocks may have already peaked for this year and might drop 20 percent amid renewed deflation fears, said Marc Faber, the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report.

The dollar is likely to rebound from an “oversold” position, which will be negative for equities, Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on the sidelines of CLSA Ltd.’s annual investor conference in Hong Kong.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d seen the peak of the market for this year because the economic news isn’t going to improve very much,” Faber, 63, said. “The correction in the market has been overdue for quite some time.”

The investor predicted on March 9 in a Bloomberg interview that equities would rally because of government stimulus measures. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped to a 12-year low that day and has since climbed 55 percent. The MSCI World Index rallied 63 percent in that time.

The S&P reached a high for 2009 of 1,071.66 on Sept. 22, and has since slipped 2 percent amid concerns the rally had outpaced prospects for a recovery in earnings and economic growth. France, Germany and Japan are among economies that have emerged from recession.

The Bank of Japan upgraded its assessment of the economy on Sept. 17 though said it remained concerned about the strength of the recovery. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said on Sept. 15 that the U.S. recession is “very likely” over, while warning that growth may not be strong enough to quickly reduce unemployment.

Credit Crisis

In a presentation to investors at the CLSA forum after the interview, Faber reiterated his bearish outlook for Western economies because fiscal and monetary stimulus efforts have only delayed a coming crisis instead of averting it....MORE