HS Dent forecasts

[friendly_jacek]

Does anyone follow the HS Dent forecasts?
No, he is not a permabull and sound like he predicts a major Ka event in 2009 based on demographic trends and technology curves.
He seems very arrogant and underestimated the 2000 crush, but his 2007 predictions are spot on so far:
http://www.hsdent.com/download/dow20000.pdf

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HS Dent forecasts

Does anyone follow the HS Dent forecasts?
No, he is not a permabull and sound like he predicts a major Ka event in 2009 based on demographic trends and technology curves.
He seems very arrogant and underestimated the 2000 crush, but his 2007 predictions are spot on so far:
http://www.hsdent.com/download/dow20000.pdf

I don't remember reading anything by Dent, and I did not read much of this 18 page promotional.

page 15 of his PDF dated 10/30/06.

The most likely scenario now is that the next bubble that started in July 2006 will last for three years, peaking around late 2009. The basic targets for now are the Dow around 20,000, and 4,300 to 5,000 for the Nasdaq. If we saw a 3-year bubble as strong as late 1984 to late 1987, then the Dow could reach as high as 27,000, but that is less likely.

and

This new forecast also means that we are likely three years away from the next major stock crash and secular bear market, and as little as four years from the beginning of a major decline in home prices and real estate after the recent slowdown that we forecast.

From the little time I spent looking at the link, there was nothing that made me want to read the whole thing, but then I have a short attention span.

[metalman]

Re: HS Dent forecasts

I don't remember reading anything by Dent, and I did not read much of this 18 page promotional.

page 15 of his PDF dated 10/30/06.



and

From the little time I spent looking at the link, there was nothing that made me want to read the whole thing, but then I have a short attention span.

in other words he missed nasdaq crash, the top in the re market, and probably the top of the dow. where do i sign up?

[Finster]

Re: HS Dent forecasts

Does anyone follow the HS Dent forecasts?
No, he is not a permabull and sound like he predicts a major Ka event in 2009 based on demographic trends and technology curves.
He seems very arrogant and underestimated the 2000 crush, but his 2007 predictions are spot on so far:
http://www.hsdent.com/download/dow20000.pdf

Dent is a pretty smart guy, but that's no guarantee of forecasting success. His Roaring 2000s book, predicting that 2000-2009 would be the greatest boom ever, turned out to have come out at the very end of the greatest boom ever!

Other very smart people have made similarly notoriously ill-timed forecasts. Bob Prechter's ultra-bearish At The Crest Of The Tidal Wave came out in 1995, at the very beginning of a five-year mega-bull blowoff.

In both cases, however, there was a common error. Dent dismissed the importance of central banking and money creation, describing inflation (like just about everything else) as a demographic phenomenon. This in turn led him to omit it from consideration in his market forecast. There is no sign whatever he considered that stock prices themselves reflect inflation. Likewise, Prechter carried out his Elliot Wave analysis as if one could compare the Dow priced in 1932 dollars and 1995 dollars as if they were on the same footing. Similarly, he acknowledged inflation and included "real" Dow analyses, but relegated them to secondary importance.

As these guys show, no matter how brilliant the analyst, forecasting is always subject to error, even to the point of being wrong about the most significant of trends and turning points. The future is always a probablistic proposition.