Perma-bear turns bullish

Signs of a Market Bottom: Perma-Bears Turn Bullish There’s a small portion of investors who are always pessimistic. They are brilliant at finding reasons not to buy. They predict the end of bubbles long before they even start to form. They never get caught in bursting bubbles. But they also never enjoy the ride up. They’re called Perma-Bears. Regardless of any good news, they always seem to be bearish. They rarely buy stocks. In many cases they’re the doom and gloomers who have been buying gold for 30 years waiting for their day. In other cases, they are investors that have the patience to wait 5, 10, or 15 years for their chance. When leading perma-bears turn bullish, you know you’re nearing a bottom. And that happened a few weeks ago when Jeremy Grantham said, “You are looking at the best prices in 20 years, and you should be making 7% to 8% to 9% real (inflation-adjusted) returns. The last time I was this optimistic was in the summer of 1982.” Grantham, who manages about $120 billion in assets for Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo, is one of the most prominent perma-bears in the world and has talked about how overvalued stocks are since the mid 90’s. After the latest market rout, Grantham is starting to turn bullish on stocks. That’s a very good sign.