Is history repeating itself or this time it is different?
Irving Fisher lost much of his personal wealth and academic reputation. He famously predicted, nine days before the crash, that stock prices had "reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
‘We’ve seen the lows in March’ for the stock market, says man who called Dow 20,000 in 2015, ‘and we will never see those lows again
That is Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, during CNBC’s “Squawk Box” segment on Friday, expressing nearly unfettered optimism about the path forward for the U.S. stock market, despite a historically bad jobs report.
Friday’s monthly report on the employment situation in the U.S. showed that 20.5 million jobs were eliminated last month, and the unemployment rate rocketed to 14.7% from a 50-year low of only 3.5% two months ago, as the coronvirus pandemic shutdown businesses across the country. However, the headline number was less worse than some estimates for 22 million unemployed.
Although the government didn’t keep records back then, economic historians estimate unemployment peaked at 25% in 1933.
Still, Siegel, says unprecedented support for the economy now by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government make it nearly impossible for the stock market to revert to its late March lows.
marketwatch.com |
