general

As a financial professional, I am acutely aware of Harry Dent and his 'new' economic analysis framework. In The Roaring 2000s Investor, Harry makes his case for demographic driven financial markets: the Baby boomers, who are now reaching their peak spending years, will drive the market onward and upward for the better part of this decade (2000-2009). He goes on to identify his strategies for:

1. Outperforming the stock market; 2. Identifying which sectors should perform best in the coming decade; 3. Selecting a competent financial advisor;

What I found most useful was the common sense, logical approach Harry takes when presenting his case. Truly, real wealth is built not by aggressive trading but through the identification of long-term trends and investing accordingly. Harry also makes a strong case for a number of sectors that should outperform during the baby boomers reign. Other tidbits I found useful include:

1. The use of long-term data to drive nearer term investment results; 2. The use of different portfolio strategies for different times of your life; 3. The risk of modest portfolio underperformance; 4. Why today's hot stocks and funds become tomorrow's dogs.

I cannot guarantee you that following Harry's recommendations will make you "the Millionaire next Door." However, as a one-time Wall Street professional, I believe he will give you enough perspective on upcoming demographic trends to give you a realistic chance of realizing financial independence.

Side note: I have also read Harry's prior book, The Roaring 2000s. The 2000's Investor is a certain reiteration of Harry's economic views and analysis previously laid out in The Roaring 2000s, which was published in 1999 (one year prior to the 2000s Investor). The themes are the same but I believe Harry gives us more application in this newest version. Therefore, read this book and spare yourself the time of the other.

I read this book back in 2000 before the crash and agreed with
some of his reasoning as to the mechanics and ideas which would be implemented in the New Millenium, but disagreed with his
belief that there would be such great prosperity,as history ALWAYS repeats itself.
But alas, no one wants a pessimist. Then he came out with the "Roaring 2000's Investor", which again was creative and showed brilliance, but proved to by flawed on many levels. Now he has another book slated to come out

"The Greatest Bull Market in History: 2003-2008: Investment, Business and Life Strategies - For the Great Boom Ahead and the Great Bust to Follow"

If his past predictions are any indication, this title itself is already filled with hindsight and error. I can tell you there will be no sustainable bull market on any of the indexes for at least the next decade.

I must admit I would like to speak with this guy. With a few real life experiences under his belt he may really hit the target, but so far the best title for a book would be "The Roaring 2000's: How to prosper by making the best seller list by publishing books that make people believe you have the answers."

Lession #1: Don't put dates in the titles of your books that try to predict the future"

In late 1999 the stock market was in a hey day. I would walk into work in the morning and my supervisor would say to me, "Ron, your stock is already up three points!" Then I came across this book by Harry Dent, and I showed it to some co-workers. At the time, this book seemed to be a revelation to us.
In the early 90s, Harry Dent predicted that in the late 90s, the stock market would hit 10,000, and we would have low inflation and low unemployment. That indeed happended, so it seemed reasonable to listen to his further prognostications. In this book, he predicts that the DOw would hit 40,000 in the year 2007, followed by a sharp bear market that would last for about 10 years.
What was his basis for predicting this? Well, lets call it the "birthrate theory." Harry Dent took a chart of birthrates, shifted it by about 44 years, and saw that this chart had a strong correlation with the ups and downs of the economy and the stock market. Why shift the birth rate chart 44 years? Because that is the age by and large where people reach their peak in earning and spending. They have reached maximum productivity--they are old enough to have learned what needs learning, and young enough before the natural decline of aging. So basically, when the group of those around 44 years old increases, so goes the theory, the stock market and the economy goes up, and when the group of those around 44 years old decreases, the market and economy is in decline. Thus that "baby boom generation" when they entered their 40s, fueled the market and economic surge of the 80s and 90s. An interesting point to be made concerning Dent's interpretaion of this data is that while people conventioanlly start the "baby boom generation" from 1945, Dent starts it a couple of years earlier, and I do think he is right, the increase in birthrates started earlier than 1945.
One objection to Dent's theory that has been made--by Dr. Shiller who wrote "Irrational Exuberance"--is that why did not this demographic birthrate theory affect other asset classes, like real estate. A reply to this objection from the basis of the birthrate theory is that it has but in a different way--that since people buy homes generally when they are in thier 20s and 30s, then you should shift the bithrate chart around 30 years for real estate. And this seems to be confirmed by the experience of the 1970s, when real estates values went up when the baby boom generation was in the 20s and 30s.
A devasting objection to Dent's theory, however, is that is has been for all intents and purposes been falsified. For the market to reach 40,000 in the year 2007 from this point today, the market would have TO HAVE AN ANNUAL RATE OF RETURN OF AT LEAST 25 PERCENT FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS. The odds of that happening are astronomical and has no precedent in stock market history.
Dent had a chart showing the rates of return of the market by decade. He pointed out that while there has been two consecutive decades of above average market returns (for example, the 50s and 60s, and the 80s and 90s) there has never been THREE CONSECUTIVE decades of above average returns--but the exeception would be this time. Dent should have stuck with the decade analysis.
So it looks like that the period of 2000-2010 will be a decade of below average returns for the stock market, comparable to the 30s and the 70s.
This book has some value in that it can get one to think in broader historical terms about the markets. Part of the title of this review/essay is "but there is hope." As the decade analysis of the market shows, bear markets do not last forever, though they may last a decade, and then they are followed by bull markets. SO perhaps around the year 2010 a new bull market will begin and it would be a good time to be invested.
If one is interested in good investment advice, I have been following Bob Brinker lately. He has a radio show about investing heard on stations around the country. In early 2000 he told his listeners to get out of the NASDAQ and the market; Brinker was right in calling the top. He has not yet gone back into the market--thus avoiding terrible declines for his followers. Mr. Brinker, against the academic view, thinks he can "time" the market, and believes that one can make money on rallies in the general bear makret. He has not, at this time, yet given a signal when this "counter-cyclical" rally in the bear market will occur. Stay tuned.