Jeremy Grantham "has almost never been this dire"

Jeremy Grantham heads one of the best quantitative, value-oriented firms out there, Grantham Mayo and Van Otterloo (referred to as GMO for short). In his quarterly letter (www.gmo.com, you have to register to read their letters, but it's worth it and I've never received a bit of unsolicited email from them), Grantham puts forward the same message he's been delivering for some time: the market is grossly over-valued.

Grantham has been preaching this for some time, but his record in being right, though almost always early, is excellent. Heeding his words back in the late 1990's would have saved you a lot of heart-ache if you were invested in the tech and telecom bubble.

Grantham's theme in the past focused on a reversion to the mean of corporate profit margins. In this letter, he doesn't spend much time on that subject, but he does take private equity, corporate tax rates, global financial markets, subprime mortgages, etc. to task. He simply sees too much risk taking out there and predicts it will end poorly.

I'll just quote Grantham here because he says it best, "To conclude, I have been trying to come up with a simple statement that would capture how serious the situation is for the overstretched, overleveraged financial system, and this is it: In 5 years I expect that at least one major "bank" (broadly defined) will have failed and that up to half the hedge funds and a substantial percentage of the private equity firms in existence today will have simply ceased to exist."

Wow, that's quite a prediction!

He goes on to say, "I have often been too bearish about the U.S. equity markets in the last 12 years (although bullish on emerging equity markets), but I think it is fair to say that my language has almost never been this dire. The feeling I have today is that of watching a very slow motion train wreck."

He's not mincing words there, either.

What's his suggested solution? In a word, "anti-risk." He doesn't take much time explaining what that means, but I think I can guess. Some investements will do a lot better than others if or when risk becomes a four-letter-word again. That may include shorting the market, buying commodities or gold, buying Treasury securities, or finding business managers who can benefit greatly in a market situation characterized by a lot of risk aversion.

In this last category, I'd put companies like Berkshire Hathaway, Leucadia and Fairfax Financial, companies that have a lot of cash on hand or are short the market and are waiting for a risk averse market to put their money to work. In the interest of full disclosure, I own positions in all three of these companies both personally and for clients.

A more risk averse market like we are facing usually scares people to death. In contrast, I see such situations as golden opportunities to buy when blood is running in the streets. In addition, I've purchased securities that I believe will do well even if the market does fair poorly.

Nothing in this blog should be considered investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. The opinions, estimates and projections contained herein are subject to change without notice. Information throughout this blog has been obtained from sources believed to be accurate and reliable, but such accuracy cannot be guaranteed.