Marc Faber: 3 reasons why a plunge is coming

Posted by Marc Faber - GloomBoomDoom.com

Share on Facebook

Tweet on Twitter

images

If you want to hear a rosy view on the market, you’d better not listen to Marc Faber .

The editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report has long held that a correction was coming—and even though that thesis has not exactly played out this year, he’s standing by it.

“In my view, we’ll go back to the lows in November 2012—around 1,343” in the S&P 500 Faber said. Overall, he considers U.S. equities a “better sell than a buy.”

Here are his three three main reasons for his bearish view.

Reason one: The U.S. will follow emerging markets down

It hasn’t been an easy summer for emerging markets. In the period of a month and a half, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (which tracks emerging markets’ large- and mid-cap stocks) lost nearly 20 percent of its value and has hardly bounced back from the lows.

That has made the U.S. market an outperformer, but Faber believes it cannot last. In fact, he said, U.S. equities could be hurt by their relative costliness.

“When emerging markets go down and the S&P goes up, the asset allocators say, ‘Do I want to buy the S&P near a high, or do I venture back into emerging economies that are down 50 percent from their highs, like India or Brazil and so forth?’ So you understand that the pool of money can flow back into emerging markets,” Faber said.

imagesReason two: The Middle East will become a “disaster”

The stock market has lately been hurt by the concerns about U.S. military action against Syria. In fact, the market lost half of its gains last Tuesday when House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) said that he would support President Barack Obama ‘s plan to strike Syria. But Faber believes we haven’t seen anything yet.

“The Middle East is a powder keg, and it will go up in flames because the Western imperialistic powers, they still meddle into the local affairs,” Faber said. “It’s going to be a disaster. And it’s going to strike from Syria and Egypt into Saudi Arabia, into the Emirates eventually, and so forth and so on, and you’re going to have a huge mess.”

Reason three: Interest rates have become a headwind

Before Syria became a concern for the market, the focus was clearly on interest rates. Though Fed easing has kept rates low by historical metrics, “the interest rate has doubled on the 10-year Treasury note” since the July 2012 low, “despite Mr. Bernanke’s maddening asset purchases since September 2012,” Faber said.

So what does that mean for the market?

“Interest rates are no longer a tailwind” but are now “a headwind,” Faber declared, adding that yields will drop even further. In fact, he advocates buying bonds as a safety trade, because he thinks that after the market drops, deflation concerns will come to the fore. 

You can read more market comments at http://www.marcfabernews.com