Oh, No. Harry Dent is Back with Another Book

His track record suggests that you should do the opposite of what he recommends

Ric Edelman: It's Monday, November 20th and Harry Dent is back. He's got a brand new book called Crash of a Lifetime. In it, he says the stock market is going to fall 86% and it's going to happen next year. He says this was supposed to happen in 2022, but it didn't. So now he says it will happen in 2024. I guess when it doesn't, he'll say it'll happen in 2026 and then 2028 and so on.

Should you listen to Harry Dent? Should you read his new book, Crash of a Lifetime? Well, you might want to go read all of his earlier books before you buy the new one. Yeah. Harry has been writing books for 30 years. On January 1st, 1994, Harry 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, Harry wrote The Roaring 2000s: Building the wealth and lifestyle you desire in the greatest boom in history. And you know what happened next. 1999 was the top of the market. What followed next was the bursting of the dot com bubble. The market crashed in 2000, losing 9%. It then lost 12% in 2001, 22% in 2002. If you had $100 in the stock market in 1999 and followed what Harry told you to do, your $100 by the end of 2002 was only worth 62 bucks.

So along came Harry again in 2004 with his next book, The Next Great Bubble Boom! How to profit from the Greatest Boom in History, 2005 to 2009. Really, we all know what happened in 2007 and 2008, the greatest market meltdown since the depression. It wasn't the greatest boom in history, Harry. It was the greatest bust in history. Thanks, Harry.

And then in 2009, Harry published The Great Depression Ahead. The problem for Harry is that stocks bottomed out on March 9th of 2009, and for the next 12 years, there was no depression. The stock market enjoyed its biggest bull run ever. The market grew 27% in 2009. The next year, it gained another 15%. 

But Harry didn't think that this was real. So in 2011, he warned everybody with another new book, The Great Crash Ahead Strategies for a World Turned Upside Down. Upside down. Really. Over the next ten years, the stock market nearly tripled in value. It had only one down year out of the 12 when it fell a measly 4% in 2018. But that decade of unprecedented wealth creation didn't stop Harry. In 2012, he wrote How to Prosper in the Global Meltdown. In 2014, he wrote The Demographic Cliff: How to Survive during the Great Deflation. In 2015, he wrote What to Do When the Bubble Pops: Strategies for the Coming Economic Winter. In 2016, he wrote The Great Bubble Burst of 2017. Sorry, Harry, but the stock market grew 22% that year. 

And so now Harry is back with another book, this one called Crash of a Lifetime. Harry Dent has never published a book that has been correct. Instead, he looks at what the market has just done, and he then exploits current emotions of fear or greed. If the market just crashed, he'll tell you it's about to fall further. If the market rose, he'll tell you it's about to rise even more.

Well, last year the market crashed. Remember, the S&P fell 18%. So this year he writes a book called Crash of a Lifetime.

Okay, let me summarize all this. 1994 Harry says the market will go up. It doesn't. 1999 Harry says the market will rise. Instead it crashed. 2004 Harry says the market will rise. Instead it crashed. 2009 Harry says the market will crash and Harry says the market will crash in 2011 and 12 and 14, 15 and 2016. He was wrong. Every time, every single time the stock market did the exact opposite of what Harry said it would do. Well, at least Harry is consistent, and for 30 years he's been consistently wrong. In other words, if you want to succeed in the stock market, just do the exact opposite of what Harry Dent tells you to do. And right now, Harry Dent is telling you that the stock market is going to crash. 

Why am I wasting time joking about Harry Dent? Because your clients are listening to him. He's on the circuit again, promoting his book. If you're not talking to your clients, then all they're hearing are people like Harry Dent. As a financial advisor, you need to be talking to your clients, because Harry Dent is.

And if you're an investor, this story reinforces why you need to be careful who you listen to. If you have a financial advisor, you're paying them to give you advice that's tailored to your specific situation, your specific needs. Listen to your advisor, not some pundits who have been trying to get it right for 30 years and are still getting it wrong.

Hey, you know, I talk a lot about bitcoin and crypto here on the show for obvious reasons. Bitcoin, blockchain, digital assets. This represents the greatest wealth building opportunity available to you. I've been trying to help you understand what this new technology is all about. Sometimes you get people asking me about bitcoin versus gold, and you sometimes see people debating which of the two is better. I cover all this in my book, The Truth About Crypto. The number one Amazon bestseller. But let me summarize it for you here. You really shouldn't be debating bitcoin versus gold. Both are legitimate asset classes. That means both belong in your diversified portfolio. I talk a lot about the reasons for adding crypto to your portfolio, so let me tell you why you should consider gold as well. 

We all know the attributes of gold. It has low correlation to stocks and bonds. That helps with portfolio diversification and rebalancing. For 5,000 years, it's been regarded as a store of value that helps demand stay high and higher demand can lead to capital appreciation. Oh for sure, gold is not the best performing asset class, not by a long shot. It's not a perfect hedge against inflation, not by a long shot. You can buy gold bullion if you want. Or gold coins. Those aren't regulated securities. They're a hassle to buy and to store.

That's why a lot of people who want to own gold prefer to own ETFs of gold. These ETFs don't just buy gold. A lot of them also invest in the stocks of companies that mine for gold. If the cost of mining is less than the value of the gold that they're mining, they make money. Another way to invest is to trade options and futures contracts of gold. If you're interested in any of this about adding gold or a gold oriented position to your portfolio, consider the Gold Explorers ETF. The symbol is GOEX from Global

X ETFs. You can learn more about this at Global X ETFs.com. And if you're an investor, ask your financial advisor about it. The Gold Explorers ETF from Global X ETFs.com.

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