Jeremy Grantham.Alison Yin/AP Images for DivestInvest
- Jeremy Grantham, Michael Burry, and other market gurus expects stocks to fall further.
- Grantham and Burry both forecast the S&P 500 will drop by at least another 50%.
Jeremy Grantham, Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame, and other investors and commentators have warned stocks could tumble a lot further before the current downturn is over.
These market veterans, who fully expected asset prices to retreat, have cautioned that rising interest rates and stubborn inflation could spark further declines and drag the US economy into a recession.
Here's a roundup of their comments on the recent market slump:
1. Jeremy Grantham
Jeremy Grantham cofounded the asset management firm GMO. Boston Globe/Getty Images
US stocks are set to double or even triple their recent declines, Jeremy Grantham warned in a CNBC interview this month.
The market historian and GMO cofounder suggested the S&P 500 could plunge by 56% from its current level to about 1,900, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq could nosedive 74% to below 3,100.
Grantham has also sounded the alarm on the surging prices of housing, bonds, energy, metals, and food.
"We are really messing with all of the assets, and this has turned out, historically, to be very dangerous." he said.
The investor also raised the prospect of stagflation for the US economy, and cautioned the Federal Reserve might balk at shoring up asset prices given the risk of worsening inflation.
2. Michael Burry
Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Michael Burry recently compared the current market downturn to an aviation disaster, and said it reminded him of the collapse of the mid-2000s housing bubble.
"As I said about 2008, it is like watching a plane crash," the investor wrote in a since-deleted tweet on May 24. "It hurts, it is not fun, and I'm not smiling."
The Scion Asset Management chief warned that based on historic market slumps, the S&P 500 index could lose half its value and sink below 1,900. He also suggested it could be several years until Amazon, Microsoft, and other high-flying stocks record their bottom tick, as they did in 2002 and 2009.
Burry, who shot to fame for anticipating and profiting from the 2008 crash, diagnosed the "greatest speculative bubble of all time in all things" last summer, and warned buyers of meme stocks and cryptocurrencies that the "mother of all crashes" was coming.
3. Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio Bloomberg TV
Ray Dalio recently underscored the jarring shift in markets from easy money and soaring asset prices to rising interest rates, raging inflation, and both geopolitical and economic headwinds.
"Like all bubbles or paradigm shifts, the mentality that did exist — we don't have to worry about inflation, cash is a safe place, and so on — gets a shock," the Bridgewater Associates cofounder and co-chief investor said.
"There's been a 14-year bull market, and there's a punch in the face to all investors," Dalio added.
4. David Rosenberg
Screenshot via Bloomberg TV
The S&P 500, already down 15% this year, could tumble another 19% to around 3,300 points, David Rosenberg said in a recent MarketWatch article.
The veteran economist and Rosenberg Research boss based his prediction on the S&P 500's dividend yield, which has historically converged with the 10-year Treasury yield before a bear market ends.
Rosenberg also compared the recent downturn to the summer of 2008, raised the prospect of a recession, and underlined how unsurprised he was by the sell-off.
"We always believed these past two years represented a fake bull market built on sand, not concrete," he said.