Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham says he's certain the stock market is in a bubble after its 'truly crazy' rally this year
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The legendary investor Jeremy Grantham told CNBC on Thursday that he was certain the stock market is in a bubble following its "powerful, rapid, and, in many areas, truly crazy" rally from March lows.
"The more spectacular the rise and the longer it goes, the more certainty one can have that you're in the 'real McCoy' bubble," said Grantham, the cofounder and chief investment strategist of the asset-management firm GMO.
Grantham initially expressed fears about a bubble to CNBC in June, when he told investors to have zero exposure to US equities and said he might be witnessing the fourth major market bubble in his career. The S&P 500 has gained roughly 14% since his call, and Grantham said this and "crazy behavior" from investors were only making him more certain the US is in a bubble."The market can go up on bad news and go up on good news," Grantham said. "It can interpret a Trump victory as bullish and then seamlessly interpret a Biden victory as bullish. There are all the characteristics of a bubble. There's nothing much you can throw at when it gets going."
He added that an effective coronavirus vaccine or more fiscal stimulus in the US wouldn't change the fact that the stock market is in a bubble. Grantham has successfully called three market bubbles: Japan's asset-price bubble in 1989, theOn Thursday, he said one year would be a "stretch" for the bubble to continue inflating while two more years of rising prices would be "extremely unlikely."
"I've never had any illusions about my ability to time the bubble breaking; I have a very low definition of success," Grantham said. "It's just sooner or later the market will be lower than the point at which I suggested you should get out."He added that low, risk-free rates from the Federal Reserve had pushed up the prices of assets.
"The one reality you can never change is that a higher-priced asset will always produce a lower return than a lower-priced asset," he said. "You can't have your cake and eat it. You can enjoy it now, or you can enjoy it steadily in the distant future, but not both. And the price we will pay for having this market go higher and higher is a lower and lower 10-year return from the peak."
Read more: 38 units, retired at 27, and over $10,000 in monthly passive income: How Rachel Richards leveraged a simple real-estate investment strategy into an income-generating empireCopyright © 2021. Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service.
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