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BookmarkLast year, Richard Russell made one of his last and most shocking predictions ever. Below is what the Godfather of newsletter writers had to say.
With gold breaking $1,200 and the bond market continuing its waterfall decline, it is a great day to step back and look at the big picture as seen through Russell’s eyes.
– From legendary Richard Russell: “In the 90 years that I have been on this earth I have never felt good about myself. But lately, after much soul searching, I finally accepted that I am a good person and deserve to treat myself better. I grew up during the Great Depression and I learned to always order the cheapest item on the menu in restaurants. In those difficult days, a penny saved was like a dollar earned…
Frightened, People Wouldn’t Pay $10,000 For A Building In New York City
I remember well during 1932, that real estate parcels in New York City were often for sale for $10,000 cash. Yet they didn’t sell because people were afraid to put down $10,000 cash on a New York City building. Anybody who had cash refused to part with it regardless of the huge possible return on their money. If you had cash, you thanked God that you had it and no investment was juicy enough to entice you to put down your money. Thus, New York real estate was selling at giveaway prices and it stayed that way until the Great Depression ended.
I remember full-course Sunday dinners at top restaurants being offered for a dollar or less. I remember admission to neighborhood movies (double features) for 15 cents, and you could stay the whole night sleeping in your seat to stay out of the winter cold.
Lessons From Late 1957
It’s late 1957. The bull market had started up in June 1949. Suddenly a recession starts in late 1957. Sentiment among the crowd turns black bearish. The market sinks into a severe correction. I don’t believe that the bull market is over. People call me an idiot, but I am convinced that the bull market has a lot further to run. The reason is that the bull market never produced a third speculative phase. I write an article published in Barron’s to the effect that I expect a third highly speculative phase to appear ahead. People remain stubbornly bearish. They tell me I’m out of my mind. But I know that the market normally has a severe correction following the second phase of a bull market and just preceding the third speculative and final phase.
The Dow sinks to 419 in October and then turns up in the face of the severe recession. Investors are actually angry. How can the stock market be rising when there is a recession in progress? The stock market pushes relentlessly higher. My bullish Barron’s article causes a sensation. A little ad that I place in Barron’s brings in 300 subscriptions. Overnight I start up Dow Theory Letters. Within a week I am in business!
Fast Forward: Russell Predicts A Mania In Stocks, But Issues Warning
Now let’s return to the present. I believe a great speculative third phase lies ahead for this bull market. The coming third phase will see the stock market climb far higher than even the bulls think possible.
The question is: is it too late to enter the stock market? In the third phase of a bull market, usually more money is made than in the first two phases combined. Thus, I foresee the possibility of large gains if a third and final speculative phase is ahead. My advice is that you assume an initial position in DIA or SPY on any weakness.
What will be the leverage that will drive up the stock market in the coming third speculative third phase? The answer is human hysteria and greed. And never before seen, sky-high price-to-earnings ratios.
This piece may sound like a reversal of thinking on my part. But it is based on a weekend of deep thinking and memories of 1957. As for timing, I believe the coming third phase could last until 2016. It will have the effect of placing the United States as the continuing world leader…
I left Tuesday’s site with a suggestion that my subscribers swap their phony fiat money for real tangible constitutional money, gold. I believe that within the next decade we will experience a worldwide trend towards honesty and the truth; this will start with currencies and the world will go back to the gold standard.
Since the Great Depression, there have been a number of bull markets, and their average age is 3.8 years. Yet the current bull market is almost six years old. Bull markets usually end and die during periods of hysterical optimism and then exhaustion. That is the way I expect this market to end.
In this time of massive liquidity, I see the world’s stock markets as comparable to a powder keg. The wick is lit and no one knows when the whole pile will ignite.
This Grand Experiment Will End In Disaster
With gold probably near the end of its bear market, technicians are now writing more and more about gold. Debt tends to be deflationary since it requires relatively large amounts of money to carry debt, much less pay it off. A living organism cannot continue to inhale, organisms must exhale as well. This is the simple explanation that the Fed does not understand. The Fed inhales to the choking point and when the choking point is reached, instead of exhaling, the Fed inhales again. The Fed believes that it can inhale endlessly (bull market) and never exhale (bear market).
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I’ve been writing Dow Theory Letters since 1958 and as you’ve probably guessed, I am not the same man in my nineties that I was back in 1958 when I was in my thirties. Subscribers have undoubtedly noticed that I write a great deal about spirituality, and that I frequently quote Emmet Fox. As I see him, Fox is a genius mystic, an historian and a great servant to mankind. In my reports, I have always attempted to reveal my innermost thoughts to my subscribers. I started out as agnostic, and to be honest, an atheist. But events during WWII and since have served to change my mind. I write what I’m thinking about and what I’m struggling with. And the majority of my subscribers don’t seem to mind (actually many of them like it).
I often ask myself whether I am doing any good in my stay on this earth. If I have served to guide some of my subscribers toward the spiritual path, I will consider that my visit to the earth on this round will have been worth it. In closing, I’ll say that the most precious commodity on this earth, the most precious commodity that anyone can have, is peace of mind. The antithesis of peace of mind is fear. Fear is the curse of mankind. Man’s greatest task on earth is to equalize or get rid of fear. The path to getting rid of fear is learning to love yourself.
Words from Emmet Fox’s Sermon on the Mount: The old saying, “God has a plan for every man, and he has one for you,” is quite correct. God has glorious and wonderful plans for every one of us. He has planned a splendid career, full of interest, life and joy, for each, and if our lives are dull, or restricted, or squalid, that is not his fault, but ours.
Paper Manipulation Of The Gold Market Will Not Last
Late Notes — There is a giant secret stirring under today’s market. China, India, Russia and almost every central bank is buying physical gold. I’m guessing that within another year, physical gold will be swept off the market.”
Here are the final warnings and thoughts that Richard Russell communicated to his subscribers:
“Question — What’s the best action you can look for in a stock?
Answer — A long record of increasing dividends.
A lot of lies can be told about a stock, but dividends don’t lie. In order to increase dividends, a stock must create a history of producing cash. Analysts can lie, earnings can lie, CEO’s can lie, but dividends don’t lie. A company must increase its actual earnings in order to raise dividends. The only thing better than dividends is the float produced by an insurance company. The float, plus compounding, made Buffett a wealthy man.”
Russell Passed Away Right After The Last Of His High School Buddies
“One by one, the old fighters from WWII are disappearing. A few weeks ago, I was told that my best buddy, James Salter, had died. He was the last of my high school buddies. Jim flew the F-86 during the Korean War. Jim was also an excellent, world renowned writer. His book, The Hunters, talks of a US-Russia “dog fight” and their respective jet aircraft. I’ll miss Jim and his writing. He was my last old buddy. Look him up on Google if you want. They will have more to say about it.”
The legend warned about a totalitarian government:
“One of the first things the Nazis did in Germany was take away all the guns of the citizens. This meant that the government could do anything it wanted while the citizens were unable to object. As a Jew, I am fearful of a government that has all the guns with the citizens all unarmed.”
Russell also warned about robotics displacing workers and the inability to save and retire:
“The world is caught up in an amazing array of new items. Every day we hear about some new invention that is changing the world as we know it. I wrote before that the age of retirement will be history, and new inventions will displace workers by the millions. To retire requires a large amount of savings, and the way the world is working now it’s becoming almost impossible to save.”
And finally, the legend warned about the destruction of currencies and capitalism itself:
“The end of capitalism will be due to the unbelievable amount of debt that is currently being created. This will create monster inflation that will destroy every currency. The only currency that cannot be destroyed is gold. When investors realize this, we’ll have the makings of the greatest bull market in gold ever seen.”
The Early Days
A native New Yorker (born in 1924) Russell has lived through depressions and booms, through good times and bad, through war and peace. He was educated at Rutgers and received his BA at New York University. Russell flew as a combat bombardier on B-25 Mitchell Bombers with the 12th Air Force during World War II.
Richard Russell began publishing Dow Theory Letters in 1958, and he has been writing the Letters ever since (never once having skipped a Letter). Dow Theory Letters is the oldest service continuously written by one person in the business.
“Richard Russell is by far the most interesting writer of all the services we get.” — Investors Intelligence, Feb. 19, 1999.
The Calls That Made Him A Legend
Russell gained wide recognition via a series of over 30 Dow Theory and technical articles that he wrote for Barron’s during the late 1950s through the 1990s. Through Barron’s and via word of mouth, he gained a wide following. Russell was the first (in 1960) to recommend gold stocks. He called the top of the 1949-’66 bull market. And almost to the day he called the bottom of the great 1972-’74 bear market, and the beginning of the great bull market which started in December 1974.
Richard Russell was the greatest in the business and he will be sorely missed, especially during the difficult times ahead.
