I’ve never subscribed to him, and from what I recall, I had decided he wasn’t really worth following that closely -- especially in terms of market timing. Maybe he’s just capitalizing on a current fear, but I can’t recall a prediction that he’s made that had this level of consequence.
Here’s a summary conclusion of Armstrong’s predictions at tacticalinvestor.com:
Martin Armstrong’s blog is a masterclass in bold conviction, but conviction alone doesn’t cut it in markets. His Economic Confidence Model promises cyclical precision, yet it often delivers drama over detail in practice. The issue isn’t that Armstrong is always wrong—he’s not. Being directionally correct means nothing if your timing blows up portfolios. A missed turn in the road at 80 miles an hour can be just as deadly as driving off a cliff.
His repeated misfires on the Euro, gold, and global financial dominance reveal a deeper problem: the seductive power of a single model. Markets are messy, reflexive, and fueled by human behavior—trying to reduce them to a neat cycle or algorithm is intellectually attractive but operationally dangerous.
That’s where mass psychology and behavioral awareness come in. If Armstrong’s readers—or Armstrong himself—factored in crowd behavior, sentiment inflection points, and cognitive distortions like confirmation bias and anchoring, many of these botched predictions could’ve been salvaged or avoided altogether. The Euro didn’t collapse because investors believed it would. Gold didn’t hit $5,000 because faith in fiat never crumbled the way gold bugs expected. Perception is the market.
So here’s the brutal truth: Armstrong isn’t 100% wrong, but he’s not right enough to follow blindly. He offers sparks—moments of clarity drowned out by noise. His blog should be read not as gospel but as a lens—useful only when paired with independent thought, a working BS filter, and a deep understanding of how crowds actually move.
Use his forecasts as potential scenarios, not fate. Combine them with sentiment, structure, and the ever-undervalued art of timing, and you may turn scattered signals into a real edge. |
