‘Oh my God, why am I not at the market?’ This forecaster says investors will be shocked by what’s about to happen next
Slower, but higher prices and no pivot this side of Christmas. That was the message from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after the central bank’s fourth jumbo increase in a row. Bruised investors look set to continue selling stocks on Thursday as yields tear higher.
Not everyone agrees with Powell. “The Fed is making a big policy mistake, and they will manage to break something. The interest rate increases are sufficient. Something more is wrong, says Yves Lamoureux, president of the macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co.
The master forecaster also provides our today’s conversationthat will cheer the bulls as he looks ahead to the medium to long term for stocks, although Powell threw a “short-term wrench in the engine.”[ads1];
This column last spoke with Lamoureux in March, when it was declared the end of a trilogy of rolling bear markets that he accurately predicted starting with the 2020 pandemic. In March, he predicted another bull market extending to 2025, but sees it now extending to 2026 because of the “damage” that has been done.
And while bull market conditions don’t look good now, “they will when we go higher and stocks are going up,” he told MarketWatch in a recent interview.
“People are so extremely negative that it gives me even more confidence than ever before you know, that I’m on the right side of things,” Lamoureux told MarketWatch. Also in March, he predicted that the 10-year government yield would top 4%. That move came sooner than predicted, and he sees the cycle as complete and lower prices ahead, supporting the stock.
To be clear, Lamoureux has individual names, not indexes, and says May or June marked the bottom for many stocks that didn’t hit new lows like the Nasdaq Composite COMP
or the S&P 500 SPX.
He bought the stock trading app Robinhood HOOD
in June, for example, noting that it has since returned about 50% from those lows.
He has also owned Netflix NFLX
and Roblox RBLX
at times, noting that these stocks also bounced off the early summer.
“People made the mistake of looking at the index that’s made up of four or five big caps that are Microsoft, Facebook, and those things have caught up. And they look at the Nasdaq and they think we’ve made a new low. I look at individual stocks because those are the ones I have,” he said.
He says that investors must avoid the “famous big companies” that everyone wants to own. He prefers names that have leadership in their own segment and have some value, such as Netflix, which he bought for around three times the price rather than selling.
The problem investors face now is that “they don’t have the reflex to sell,” the forecaster said. That’s very important going forward, because if investors see a bull market until 2025, it could mark a “very important peak that won’t be crossed until 10 years after that,” he said.
“So if you haven’t learned how to sell, the market will probably go sideways for 10 years,” and that kind of market is tough for those who have gotten used to buying and holding, he said.
As for the ride higher, Lamoureux says it’s going to be “straight up, faster than we’ve ever seen,” in part because there’s a ton of money on the sidelines. “I think it will make people turn around and say, ‘Oh my God, why am I not in the market?’
As for his stock picks, Lamoureux remains a fan of Robinhood and a previous mention, Bakkt Holdings BKKT,
which is slowly “building a massive crypto infrastructure for companies like Visa, Matercard, Global Payments, Fiserv, etc.”
Lamoureux has two final points to make. The first is that he is now turning bearish on the US dollar after a bullish stance since 2014. That weakness in the dollar, which will be good for stocks and cryptos, is due to the fact that the US produces its own oil and does not require outflows of dollars to pay for that item.
Lamoureux & Co.
And a weaker dollar will drive gold up possibly into 2028 and to the $4,000 level, also due to geopolitical tensions, he said. “I think we’ll see some rough waters around 2026, 2027, and I think gold will still be able to go up because people will really see it as a safe haven,” he said.
Read: What’s next for the markets after the Fed’s fourth straight jumbo rate hike
The markets
MarketWatch
Stock futures YM00
ES00
NQ00
falls, with the two-year government rate BX:TMUBMUSD02Y
at its highest since 2007, along with the dollar DXY.
Oil prices CL
BRN00
and gold GC00
is under pressure. Hong Kong’s Hang Sang HK:HSI
fell nearly 3%, leading losses across Asia.
The uproar
Better than expected results from Burger King’s parent Restaurant Brands QSR
lifts shares, while Moderna MRNA
is down 12% after earnings fell well below forecasts and Peloton PTON
is down almost 20% on a weak holiday forecast.
After the closing we will hear from Coinbase COIN,
Starbucks SBUX,
PayPal PYPL
and DoorDash DASH
among a large group of others.
Among those reporting late Wednesday, Qualcomm QCOM
is down over 7% in the premarket after a poor outlook that included a chip glut. Roku ROKU
is off 20% after positive results from the streaming service, but a disappointing holiday outlook and advertising budget are worrying. Ebay EBAY
and Etsy ETSY
are up by respective results, along with WWE WWE
and Zillow Z.
Morgan Stanley MS
reportedly preparing for global layoffs as deal-making slows. And Elon Musk is expected to lay off half of Twitter’s staff, possibly by Friday.
A day ahead of payrolls data, weekly jobless claims are due at 8:30 a.m., along with the trade deficit, third-quarter productivity and unit labor costs. Department of Supply Management’s service index and factory orders are both due at 10.00
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