ALBERT EDWARDS: If I'm right, the US stock market will fall 75%

There are cynics, doom-sayers and then there's Albert Edwards, the Societe Generale economist, who's in a league almost of his own.

Edwards' most recent call is that, if the US economy plunges into a recession led by weak manufacturing output, stocks will be worth about a quarter of what they're priced at now.

It's a heavy-duty prediction.

On January 12 the S&P 500 was at 1,938.68. Edwards sees it going below the low of 666 it hit during the 2008 financial crisis, and ending up at just 550.

The main thrust of the thesis is that central bankers inflated asset prices in the wake of the 2008 crisis, and didn't let stocks hit the lows they should have done.

Central banks also caused a huge debt bubble to expand in the emerging markets and China, which is now pressuring emerging market currencies to devalue, leading to a deflationary spiral and a US recession.

Now that central banks have used up their ammunition to prop up stocks, asset prices will fall dramatically if the recession does hit. Stocks will be valued at 7x earnings.

And Edwards thinks the US is on the brink. Weak manufacturing data is the canary in the coal-mine.

When an economy is hurtling towards recession it is almost always the manufacturing sector that takes the less volatile services sector by the hand and leads it into a recessionary underworld.

Here's the chart:

Edwards carried on with doom and gloom, adding:

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