Follow Harry Dent at Your Own Peril

My friends here at ThinkAdvisor just ran a story featuring Harry Dent, noting his latest prediction: that the S&P 500 is going to fall by 86%.

I’m writing to say that, when it comes to Harry Dent, the best thing you can do is the exact opposite of whatever he says.

Dent cites the coming 86% crash in his most recent book, “Crash of a Lifetime.” Actually, he says, the crash was supposed to happen in 2022, but since it didn’t, it’s going to occur in 2024.

Before you (or your clients) panic over Dent’s extreme bearishness, you might want to read all his prior books.

On Jan. 1, 1994, Dent published “Great Boom Ahead: Your Guide to Personal and Business Profit in the New Era of Prosperity.” That year, 1994, the S&P 500 gained only 1%.

In 1999, he wrote “The Roaring 2000s: Building the Wealth and Lifestyle You Desire in the Greatest Boom in History.” You know what happened next: the dot-com bubble burst, causing the stock market to fall 9% in 2000, 12% in 2001 and 22% in 2002.

If you had $100 in the stock market in 1999 and followed what Harry told you to do, your $100 was worth only 62 bucks by the end of 2002.