I'm curious to hear people's thoughts about Harry Dent and his "coming Depression" thesis. I have a good friend who has bought in to his idea hook, line and sinker. When I read some of his newsletters I'm always torn between the guy being a sage or some guy on a street corner holding a sign proclaiming that the end is near. I don't know his history or the accuracy of his previous predictions.

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Nobody can predict the future .

That is why there are so few stock market rich boys.

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Earlier this decade, I worked for a company that sold a managed accounts product based on Harry Dent's research. If memory serves, Dent was predicting a market crash or depression in 2008 back then. I wish I paid closer attention at the time.

My blog: [www.thehackensack.blogspot.com]

My company's new site, which features tools and ideas for short sellers: [shortscreen.com]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dent

roaring 2000,s

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Never even heard of this guy until you mentioned it. Looking at Commodity's link (thanks Commodity--for once, the link is relevant to the discussion ;) ) his track record seems dubious. Anyone calling for Dow to hit 40,000, which actually turned out to be an incorrect call, doesn't seem reliable. Now it appears he has flipped and gone completely the other way. Well, I suspect his super-bearish call will be just as wrong as his super-bullish call. But it'll make him popular and make him some money. People calling extremes (like Nassim Nicholas Taleb) are rarely ever right on a consistent basis but people love following extreme theories.

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I believe I read where Sir John Templeton once said that the best forecasters they could ever find were only right about 60% of the time.

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A friend gave Dent's book "the next great bubble" it is full of economic charts and data and I think he tried to do some interesting studies based on demographics, expected demand for real estate based on demographic growth and age of population, etc.. there is something to his argument that demographics do have a big impact on markets (Example: Japan and older population, China and younger rural population etc..USA in the 50's vs 90') and reading it did add to my general tool box, so there is something to gain from him, but I also feel he tries too hard to go from these relevant data to some sort of forecast of the stock market. I would not follow his newsletter or his market suggestions.

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