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Stocks have been on a tear but there are still bears sounding alarms of a bubble about to pop.
Bearish forecasters predict a crash as lofty valuations come back down to earth.
S ome big-name investors say stocks are flashing a number of warnings that a sharp pullback is near.
Stocks just keep climbing in 2024, but the bears haven’t been silenced and some are warning that the market is in a bubble on the verge of bursting.
Fears of a painful sell-off have been rising in recent weeks, particularly as stocks continue to break through to record highs. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit four straight all-time closing highs this week, with tech titans like Apple and Nvidia continuing to soar past a $3 trillion market cap.
But the bears on Wall Street warn that the enthusiasm for artificial intelligence mirrors the internet bubble of the late 90s — and the recent run-up in stock prices is a bad omen for investors.
Here’s what five forecasters have to say about the latest rally — and why they think the stock market is headed for a fall.
Harry Dent
Stocks are in the midst of the “bubble of all bubbles,” and equities could lose more than half of their value as inflated asset prices finally burst, according to the economist Harry Dent.
When the bubble finally pops, the S&P 500 could drop as much as 86%, while the Nasdaq Composite could drop by around 92%, Dent predicted in a recent interview with Fox Business Network.
That bubble, which has formed over years of loose monetary and fiscal policy, is already showing signs of “topping,” Dent added. Stocks are “barely” making new highs, and equities have likely been inflated for the past 14 years, he estimated — far longer than most historical bubbles, which typically last for five to six years.
“It’s been stretched higher for longer, so you have to expect a bigger crash than we got in 2008 and 2009,” he warned.
Dent has been making the case for a major market crash for years. In 2009, he wrote a book predicting a stock market crash and ensuing economic depression, which he said could last for 10 years or…
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