Harry Dent
Encyclopedia
Harry S. Dent, Jr. is an American
financial newsletter writer. His latest book, The Great Depression Ahead, appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List.
, South Carolina
, United States
, North America
. His father was Harry S. Dent, Sr.
.
Dent received his B.A. from the University of South Carolina
, where he graduated #1 in his class. He earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School
as a Baker Scholar.
Dent is the Founder of HS Dent Investment Management, an investment firm based in Tampa
, Florida
that advises the Dent Strategic Portfolio Fund mutual fund. Dent is also the president and founder of the H.S. Dent Foundation and H.S. Dent Publishing.
Dent writes an economic newsletter that reviews the economy in the US and around the world through demographic trends focusing on predictable consumer spending patterns, as well as financial markets, and has written seven books, of which two recent ones have been bestsellers:
The basis of Dent's research is the highly predictable nature of consumer spending based on a family's formation pattern: minimal spending as young adults, increased spending while rearing children, peaking their spending as their children leave home, and then slowing spending during the last 15 years of working life (48-63) while saving more and preparing for retirement.
In the late 1980s, Dent forecast that the Japanese economy, then the darling of the world, would soon enter a slowdown that would last more than a decade. In the early 1990s, he predicted that the DOW
would reach 10k. Both of these predictions were met with much skepticism, and yet both eventually came to pass.
In Japan, Dent was using their peak of 45-50 year olds (1990–1994) as the beginning of a long slowdown. In the US, he used, and continues to use, the peak year for 48-year-olds, 2009, as the top of a long term growth pattern.
In 2000, based on his forecast that economic growth would continue throughout the 2000s, Dent predicted that the DOW would reach 40k, a prediction which was repeated in his 2004 book. In his book, he also predicted the NASDAQ
would reach 13-20k. In late 2006 he revised his forecasts to much lower levels, estimating the Dow would reach 16-18k and the NASDAQ 3-4k. In January 2006, he predicted that the DOW would reach 14-15k by the end of the year. It ended 2006 at 12,463, 11% below the lower end of his prediction. It ended 2007 at 13,264, again significantly lower than Dent's revised prediction of 15,000 by early 2008. Since then, the Dow crossed 14,000 in late 2007 before retreating.
Dent popularized the baby boomer
spending wave theory. According to him, after baby-boomers' children leave home, they begin paying down debt and saving for retirement, which means spending less. That means that the stock-market should peak sometime between 2007 and 2009. This is based on his observation that spending peaks at around age 50 for individuals, the average age for a family's children to leave home.
- where it is easy to find patterns in past data and assign predictive powers to them when many such patterns occur in every data collection purely by chance.
Dent has been criticized also by many economists for being downright wrong in several of his predictions. In fact, www.maxfunds.com, a financial reporting site awarded him the The "Ultimate Charlatan" Award.
They write: "The worst investing advice usually arrives near the top and bottom of stock market cycles. Demographic trends guru Harry S. Dent is making the rounds again, and touting his latest book, The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History ...."
In his 2006 work, Dent predicted, “The Dow hitting 40,000 by the end of the decade, the NASDAQ['s] advancing at least ten times from its October 2001 lows to around 13,500, and potentially as high as 20,000 by 2009 … The Great Boom['s] resurging into its final and strongest stage in 2007, and even more fully in 2008, lasting until late 2009 to early 2010.”
Of course, those who read The Roaring 2000s, Dent's 1999 masterpiece, should soon be buying each of us a turkey with all the fixin's. According to the book, only a year remains before the Dow breaks 40,000 and the Nasdaq hits 20,000, at which time we'll simply amplify our fortunes by shorting stocks in the coming depression. We can’t underestimate how big this final move up will be before the depression kicks in, since The Dow and Nasdaq are currently quite a bit lower than they were back in 1999 when The Roaring 2000s was published."
, an American stock market analyst and writer who bases his theories on the Elliott wave and Elliott wave Grand supercycle
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
financial newsletter writer. His latest book, The Great Depression Ahead, appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Biography
Dent was born in ColumbiaColumbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. His father was Harry S. Dent, Sr.
Harry S. Dent, Sr.
Harry Shuler Dent, Sr. was an American political strategist and father of financial prognosticator Harry S. Dent, Jr.. He is best known as the architect of the Republican Southern Strategy...
.
Dent received his B.A. from the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...
, where he graduated #1 in his class. He earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
as a Baker Scholar.
Dent is the Founder of HS Dent Investment Management, an investment firm based in Tampa
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
that advises the Dent Strategic Portfolio Fund mutual fund. Dent is also the president and founder of the H.S. Dent Foundation and H.S. Dent Publishing.
Dent writes an economic newsletter that reviews the economy in the US and around the world through demographic trends focusing on predictable consumer spending patterns, as well as financial markets, and has written seven books, of which two recent ones have been bestsellers:
- The Great Crash Ahead (2011)
- The Great Depression Ahead (2009)
- The Next Great Bubble Boom (2006)
- The Roaring 2000s Investor (1999)
- The Roaring 2000s (1998)
- The Great Jobs Ahead (1995)
- The Great Boom Ahead (1993)
- Our Power to Predict (1989)
The basis of Dent's research is the highly predictable nature of consumer spending based on a family's formation pattern: minimal spending as young adults, increased spending while rearing children, peaking their spending as their children leave home, and then slowing spending during the last 15 years of working life (48-63) while saving more and preparing for retirement.
In the late 1980s, Dent forecast that the Japanese economy, then the darling of the world, would soon enter a slowdown that would last more than a decade. In the early 1990s, he predicted that the DOW
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average , also called the Industrial Average, the Dow Jones, the Dow 30, or simply the Dow, is a stock market index, and one of several indices created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow...
would reach 10k. Both of these predictions were met with much skepticism, and yet both eventually came to pass.
In Japan, Dent was using their peak of 45-50 year olds (1990–1994) as the beginning of a long slowdown. In the US, he used, and continues to use, the peak year for 48-year-olds, 2009, as the top of a long term growth pattern.
In 2000, based on his forecast that economic growth would continue throughout the 2000s, Dent predicted that the DOW would reach 40k, a prediction which was repeated in his 2004 book. In his book, he also predicted the NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
would reach 13-20k. In late 2006 he revised his forecasts to much lower levels, estimating the Dow would reach 16-18k and the NASDAQ 3-4k. In January 2006, he predicted that the DOW would reach 14-15k by the end of the year. It ended 2006 at 12,463, 11% below the lower end of his prediction. It ended 2007 at 13,264, again significantly lower than Dent's revised prediction of 15,000 by early 2008. Since then, the Dow crossed 14,000 in late 2007 before retreating.
Dent popularized the baby boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
spending wave theory. According to him, after baby-boomers' children leave home, they begin paying down debt and saving for retirement, which means spending less. That means that the stock-market should peak sometime between 2007 and 2009. This is based on his observation that spending peaks at around age 50 for individuals, the average age for a family's children to leave home.
Criticism
Dent makes heavy use of charts, cycles, and trends, apart from his demographic theories in predicting short and intermediate term economic and stock cycles. His work is based primarily on the assumption that most long term stock market performance can be explained by long-term trends and charts from the past. His critics question the assumption that clues to all major stock market events can be found in the relatively short history of well functioning stock markets in the world. His work has been criticized also for heavy use of data dredgingData dredging
Data dredging is the inappropriate use of data mining to uncover misleading relationships in data. Data-snooping bias is a form of statistical bias that arises from this misuse of statistics...
- where it is easy to find patterns in past data and assign predictive powers to them when many such patterns occur in every data collection purely by chance.
Dent has been criticized also by many economists for being downright wrong in several of his predictions. In fact, www.maxfunds.com, a financial reporting site awarded him the The "Ultimate Charlatan" Award.
They write: "The worst investing advice usually arrives near the top and bottom of stock market cycles. Demographic trends guru Harry S. Dent is making the rounds again, and touting his latest book, The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History ...."
In his 2006 work, Dent predicted, “The Dow hitting 40,000 by the end of the decade, the NASDAQ['s] advancing at least ten times from its October 2001 lows to around 13,500, and potentially as high as 20,000 by 2009 … The Great Boom['s] resurging into its final and strongest stage in 2007, and even more fully in 2008, lasting until late 2009 to early 2010.”
Of course, those who read The Roaring 2000s, Dent's 1999 masterpiece, should soon be buying each of us a turkey with all the fixin's. According to the book, only a year remains before the Dow breaks 40,000 and the Nasdaq hits 20,000, at which time we'll simply amplify our fortunes by shorting stocks in the coming depression. We can’t underestimate how big this final move up will be before the depression kicks in, since The Dow and Nasdaq are currently quite a bit lower than they were back in 1999 when The Roaring 2000s was published."
See also
Robert PrechterRobert Prechter
Robert R. Prechter, Jr. is an American author and stock market analyst, known for his financial forecasts using the Elliott wave principle. Prechter is an author and co-author of 14 books, and editor of 2 books , his book Conquer the Crash is a New York Times bestseller...
, an American stock market analyst and writer who bases his theories on the Elliott wave and Elliott wave Grand supercycle
Grand supercycle
A Grand Supercycle is the longest period, or wave, in the growth of a financial market as described by the Elliott Wave Principle, originally proposed by Ralph Nelson Elliott...
.