Ken Fisher on the economic recovery

This was not a recession that we had in 2020, it was a constriction caused by the lockdowns.  And therefore the bounceback was not the kind of bounceback you normally get after an economic recession that has to correct for prior excesses and dislocations in the economy, but instead simply about unwinding the lockdowns...  It's not really a new cycle.  It's really just a return to the old cycle that was here before we were briefly interrupted by the Covid lockdowns.

~ Ken Fisher, "Mid-Year 2021 Stock Market Report," 0:40 mark, July 30, 2021

Ken Fisher: tech bubble still in the middle of bursting (2001)

People keep asking if the technology drubbing is over - or will be soon.  As long as folks keep asking, you don't have to.  It isn't over until they stop asking.  The end is silent.  Make no mistake, this is the middle of the bursting of a classic sector bubble.

~ Ken Fisher, "Tech 2001," Forbes, January 22, 2001

Ken Fisher remains bullish because "We're stil straddling skepticism and optimism"

Running out of steam is best seen via legendary investor John Templeton’s four-phase quote: “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.” Upon reaching euphoria bull markets lack energy to propel them further. Bulls climb the legendary “Wall of Worry,” and when all worries wane to well-worn whitewashing, you’re out of steam.

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So I wait, watch and remain bullish, noting we’re still, in Templeton’s parlance, straddling skepticism and optimism, and, hence, abundant force propels this bull on. Without a wall we’re maybe halfway through.

~ Ken Fisher, "Only Two Things Can Stop The Bull Market," Forbes, March 26, 2014 (online version), April 14, 2014 (print version)

Ken Fisher: We're in "the middle of a bull market"

The notion of having a couple of 25% back-to-back years is something that would shock most people.  And we still have a world where most investors over the recent years have been lightening up on equities.  Overall, the notion that it's actually maybe the middle of a bull market, and there's a lot ahead - that's a really impossible concept for most people to get. 

I've got this part of me that's a big fan of John Templeton's line that 'bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria,' and I think we're kind of at the point in time where we have one foot in skepticism and one foot in optimism, and we haven't finished straddling that transition.

~ Ken Fisher, interview on Bloomberg TV, June 21, 2013

Ken Fisher on how stock market negatives are digested and discounted

Negatives continue to abound.  So why do I expect stocks to shine in 2013?  Because I’m not a cow, I’m a bull.  Let me explain: Most negatives you hear about are well known and widely discussed, digested and already priced into stocks.  If it’s widely known, it’s either wrong or will have little impact on stocks.

Fear of Europe?  We’ve fretted over it for three years while stocks rose.  Another Obama term—fully four years of fretting under our belts!  The debt crisis—we will be fretting about that forever.

Markets are designed to price in all widely known factors.  I see little now where the cud hasn’t already been chewed and rechewed.   What’s a cud?  A mass of semidegraded food that is regurgitated.  It’s comfort food for cows and other herd animals.   Following the herd can be dangerous to your financial health.

~ Ken Fisher, Forbes, January 2, 2013

Ken Fisher: "Ignore political babble"

This year, ignore political babble. You’ll be better off. Ignore debt debates, silly fake controversies and finger pointing over who is or isn’t the bigger fan of private enterprise. (I win that footrace, anyway.) Or whose supporters are richer or not. And whether that’s bad or not. My forecast is for global stocks to end 2012 up big. Tune out the nonsense, and you’ll better enjoy the ride.

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Love it or hate it, we either re-elect a Democrat or newly elect a Republican in November. Barring alien invasion, no other options. Historically, US stocks average 14.5% when we re-elect a Democrat and 18.8% when we newly elect a Republican—both great outcomes. So tune it out—your eardrums and portfolio will thank you.

~ Ken Fisher, "Put Them On Mute," Forbes.com, May 29, 2012

Ken Fisher on "bounce back" investing

One of the points is that the stocks that have been getting hammered the most are actually the same categories that were doing well as the market was going up, which is really normal for a correction. They are the ones the most economically sensitive and therefore I think the bounce back where you want to focus now is on the things that are economically sensitive including energy and materials and industrials and consumer discretionary as you have shown on your chart earlier as to the areas that have done best in the expansion. I think those areas bounce back, because as we move from a period in a normal expansion of below average growth back to more normal growth, those stocks will get more bounce back and more empathy behind them, if you will.

~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, CNBC, June 22, 2011

Ken Fisher shows his macro blind spots, says look to the emerging market stars in 2011

My view is you should always think globally first and think America second. You look around the world, emerging market companies are what are cumulatively doing better than America's economy, growing pretty darned nicely. While there is some global slowdown, there's not the slowdown we see focused on America. In every economic expansion some countries lead and some lag. Right now, we're in the middle of the pack, not the leaders or laggards. we're so used to being the leaders, we have a hard time with it.

~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, CNBC, June 22, 2011

Ken Fisher tunes out Bernanke, tempers his 2011 forecast

First, whenever I feel the urge to pay attention to Mr. Bernanke, I watch reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies instead. Second, in every economic expansion in our lifetimes, and before, the rate of GDP growth has been variable and there have always been quarters the GDP growth rate slowed down sometimes, in fact single quarters of negative GDP growth within economic expansions. This period is not very abnormal. Mind you, I'm not terribly bullish for this year. My view of this year has been single digit positive returns and much more of a picker's year than big broad theme year. I'm not terribly wildly optimistic and try to do the best I can to think about Mr. Bernanke the way Milton Friedman would have written about him-- we would do better if we would do less.


~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, CNBC, June 22, 2011

Billionaire Ken Fisher sees 16% S&P 500 rally after elections

Markets don’t like big sweeping actions. Right now, every politician is chirping and burping and carrying on. It’s been in the interest of the Republicans running for office to talk down the economy. That goes away immediately after the election. Come June, you’ll see how quiet the political landscape will be -- very little legislation and a lot of baby kissing.

~Ken Fisher, Fisher Investments, Bloomberg.com, November 3rd, 2010

Ken Fisher on volatility and indigestion in the markets

This year's just like most, it's just a little volatile.

We come to this point, particularly off of a bear market bottom, a lot of fear, a lot of backward-looking at all of the terrible things we went through and then we get acrophobia and then we get indigestion and what we've been doing all year long has been indigestion.

We're going to have a good time period ahead, markets just have a hard time believing that because we just went through such a bad time period.

~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, CNBC "Squawk Box", October 19th, 2010

Ken Fisher nays the naysayers on the state of the world economy

We can quibble about details, but right now, we’ve got the world snarky, skeptical, pessimistic, which is normal a year and a half after the bottom of a big bear market. It’s what we always get.

~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, Inc., Bloomberg.com, September 29th, 2010

(Fisher said in October 2008 that U.S. stocks were close to the bottom. The S&P 500 fell about 30 percent from October 2008 to a 12-year low in March 2009.)

Ken Fisher misses the credit picture in 2007

Skepticism and pessimism are normal sentiments for investors 18 months after the bottom of a bear market, according to Fisher, who said in July 2007 that the global credit crunch was “just all minor volatility” and “just fears of much ado about nothing.”

~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, Inc., Bloomberg.com, September 29th, 2010

Ken Fisher on the idiocy of the "New Normal" PIMCO-brigade

We are chimpanzees with no memory.

The next 10 years are going to be just as good as the 1990s. The problems in this current environment we think are so different, and so new and so unique. It’s the same stupid old normal we’ve always had. We’ve got a great future.

~Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, Inc., Bloomberg.com, September 29th, 2010

Ken Fisher on gold (timing)

The history of gold is that, for most of its history, it's been declining in price, followed by short periods with very rapid spikes in price. In history, if you take out 15% of the months, which have come in 6 or 7 spurts depending on what currency you're in, the cumulative rest of history gold has been a net money loser. Whenever you have something that gets 100% of its return in 15% of the months, you better be really good at timing.

My point is I am neither pro-gold or con-gold, when I am asked, "What do you think about gold?" I ask, "Well, what do you think about your ability to time?"

~Ken Fisher, Intelligent Investing with Steve Forbes, April 23rd, 2010

Ken Fisher on investor psychology

I am what most people would view as crazy bullish.

The fact of the matter is most people think my optimism is pretty Pollyanna-ish. I think most people are caught up in this period I call the "Pessimism of Disbelief."

~Ken Fisher, Intelligent Investing with Steve Forbes, April 23rd, 2010

Ken Fisher on American un-exceptionalism

America is not an island alone, it hasn't been for a long time and it never will be again.

~Ken Fisher, Intelligent Investing with Steve Forbes, April 23rd, 2010

Ken Fisher on the global recovery led by emerging markets

The fact of the matter is, we've got a very nice global recovery being led by emerging markets countries, which collectively are bigger than America, pulling the developed world forward and consistently economic events are coming in better than expected, surprising people. Yet, people just keep batting it off, saying 'I don't believe it, anything good's going to morph into something bad, whatever happens is probably going to be bad.'

~Ken Fisher, Intelligent Investing with Steve Forbes, April 23rd, 2010

(For comparison, consider this recent snippet by Kevin Duffy from the Azimuth blog: "According to the latest Investors Intelligence poll of investment newsletters, for the week ended August 20, 51.6% were bullish and 19.8% were bearish. This reading of +31.8% net bulls registered the highest level of optimism since December 21, 2007. At the time the S&P 500 stood at 1484, on the precipice of a 65% plunge in 15 months.")

Ken Fisher on Phase 2 of the bull market

It's a year since the bull market began, and I remain firmly bullish...

One year into the current bull market I like what I see: globally improving fundamentals plus strong societal skepticism. Snarky, cranky sentiment and better fundamentals are the classic ingredients of the second phase of bull markets.

Economic numbers globally and almost consistently keep coming in up and better than expected, while being largely dismissed in terms of significance. In part this is because the fastest recoveries from the recession are happening in the 25% of global GDP found in emerging markets countries. Maybe it's unnerving that China and Brazil are leading us. Americans are way too U.S.-focused.

My Feb. 8 column cited the "pessimism of disbelief," the tendency to see all news as bad, or, if good, as something likely to morph into something bad. (Typical formulation: Stimulus efforts either won't work or will cause inflation.) You can see this pessimism in mutual fund flows: For three years there has been a migration into bond funds--mostly into government bonds for safety--just in time for long-term U.S. government bond funds to return a --17.5% in 2009. That's fear.

For more on market sentiment, visit market blogs anywhere. The skepticism is wise-guy thick. Anyone posts something positive and they get pounded by the wiseacres. I love it. This is the wall of worry bull markets classically climb.

~ Ken Fisher, "Bull Market, Chapter Two," Forbes, March 25, 2010

Ken Fisher: 1,300 on the S&P 500

It’s just a reversal of excessive pessimism. We still have a lot more bull market to go because we had such a huge bear market.

The economy is not recovering at a slow pace. America is faster than people think. Third-quarter GDP numbers knocked the socks off of expectations.

~ Ken Fisher, "Billionaire Fisher Sees S&P 500 Above 1,300 as Economy Recovers," Bloomberg.com, November 10, 2009

(Ken Fisher predicted the S&P 500 would reach 1,300. It closed at 1,093.08 on the day of the interview with Bloomberg.)