Longtime Bear Is Calling For 50% Drop In The S&P 500
Marc Faber: S&P is set to crash 50%, giving back 5 years of gains
The notoriously bearish Marc Faber is doubling down on his dire market view.
The editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation" that stocks are likely to endure a gut-wrenching drop that would rival the greatest crashes in stock market history.
"I think we can easily give back five years of capital gains, which would take the market down to around 1,100," Faber said, referring to a level 50 percent below Monday's closing on the S&P 500 (SPX) (SPY).
In fact, stocks would need to fall by at least that much in order for some of Faber's calls to be proven correct. In October 2009, when the S&P was trading near 1,100, Faber said on Indian CNBC-TV18 that U.S. and Indian stocks were "very overbought" and "the gravy's out" on the rally.
Since then, Faber has generally only become more and more bearish as stocks have climbed. And on Monday, as Faber made his latest crash call, the S&P 500 touched an all-time high of 2,185.44.
When pressed on what could cause the decline he predicts, Faber responded that "you never know exactly why this will happen," adding that he believes the market's gains are unsustainable.
"The fact is, the market hasn't really been driven by genuine buying, but by stock buybacks, takeovers and acquisitions, and market leadership has been narrowing. It's not that many stocks that have been making new highs. It's quite a narrow growth of stocks that have been very strong," he said.
In fact, market breadth has broadened substantially, and as of Monday's close, 48 percent of the stocks within the S&P 500 have made 52-week highs within the past three months; 6 percent made 1-year highs on Monday alone.
Even though markets have been incredibly quiescent of late, Faber warns that "the excess liquidity that have been generated by central banks will lead to a great deal of volatility."
And turning an eye to personal history, Faber said that "I've seen, repeatedly in my life, markets drop 40 or 50 percent, and in some cases I've seen a market like the Dow Jones (INDU) (DIA) drop 21 percent in one day."
"So many things can happen."
A look at Faber's predictions, however, would suggest that a sustained market rally was never really within the realm of possible happenings that he considered.
Courtesy of cnbc.com