Stephen Leeb

Last updated
Stephen Leeb
Born (1946-07-14) July 14, 1946 (age 78)
SpouseDonna Leeb
Academic career
Field Economics, Psychology
Institution Wharton School of Business
University of Illinois
Website http://www.stephenleeb.com

Stephen Leeb (born July 14, 1946 in Chicago) is a money manager and investment adviser. For more than 45 years he has been guiding investors via newsletters, books, blogs, and appearances on financial news networks including CNN, Fox News, [1] NPR and Bloomberg TV. [2] [3]

Contents

n 2003, Leeb founded the investment letter The Complete Investor, which he continued to produce through the end of 2024. Within its first year of publication, it won an award for editorial excellence from the Newsletter and Electronic Publishers Foundation, winning the award again in 2005. Leeb is currently in the process of launching a new online investment letter, Turbulent Times Investor.

Leeb is the author of nine books on finance, investing, and geopolitical trends, starting with “Getting in on the Ground Floor” (1986) through his most recent, “China’s Rise and the New Age of Gold” (2020).

He has been called one of the country's foremost financial experts by Business journalist Charlie Gasparino [4] and one of the greatest long term strategists of his generation by American billionaire businessman Thomas Kaplan which can be summarized by Kaplan's statement and foreword in Leeb's 2012 release of Red Alert saying "I would caution readers to dismiss Stephen Leeb's warnings only at their peril." [5]

Leeb is married to Donna Leeb, also an author, [6] [7] and lives in New York City, New York.

Education

Leeb earned a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business, and a Masters in Mathematics and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Illinois. He authored research papers on psychology and statistics in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Reports. His graduate degrees were obtained in three years.

Career

Leeb has written nine books on macroeconomic trends, finance, and investing, including the New York Times business bestseller The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel. [8] Leeb's earlier book Defying the Market, which predicted the dot.com bubble's collapse, was named one of the best business books of 1999 by the Library Journal. [9] [10] His book Red Alert has been called “a much needed shot in the arm for American complacency” by Publishers Weekly. [11] Red Alert was awarded the 2012 Axiom Business Book Awards silver medal in the International Business/Globalization category. [12]

Leeb is Head of the Advisory Board of Leor Exploration & Production LLC (since 2006) and a member of the advisory boards of Electrum USA Ltd. (since 2007) and Sunshine Silver Mines. [13] Both companies explore for natural resources, especially precious metals and energy. In 2007 Leor sold assets to Canadian-based Encana Cp. for over $2.5 billion. [14] He is also a member of the board and managing director of the PlainSight Group, an innovation company centered at Yale University. [13]

Predictions

Leeb accurately predicted $100-a-barrel oil, [15] the Dow's secular rise above 4000, [16] the collapse of the dot.com bubble, [17] and the current bull market in precious and industrial metals. In Defying the Market, published in 1999, he also predicted the inadequacy of computers for solving the major challenges of the subsequent decade, in particular resource scarcity. [17]

In The Coming Economic Collapse, published in 2006, Leeb wrote that a decline in nominal home prices would be “the vicious circle to end all vicious circles……..It would be a far greater challenge than rescuing the economy in the wake of the tech bubble... It would take massive amounts of money. Interest rates would likely fall to zero. Government spending would need to reach unimaginably high levels.” [18] Because of the potential consequences Leeb argued the Fed would prefer inflation rather than trying to cool an economy already stung by deflationary effects of high oil. In his subsequent book Red Alert, Leeb acknowledged he had been wrong to assume that the Federal Reserve "had the situation under control" and would "do whatever it took to assure that prices remained on an even keel." [19]

Leeb's book Red Alert argues that the Chinese understand the issue of resource scarcity much better than the West and as a result of their accumulation of vital resources may leave the West in a nearly untenable position within the next decade. [20]

Leeb is bullish on the price of gold. On King World News, he stated that "China, as I’ve repeatedly outlined, loves gold, is accumulating gold, and is proceeding with long-term initiatives, including a new monetary system, that will elevate gold in furtherance of China’s own interests". [21]

In his latest book, China’s Rise and the New Age of Gold: How Investors Can Profit from a Changing World, published in 2020, Leeb chronicles and analyzes the global events, fluctuations in international currencies, market forces and economic trends which he predicts will result in a meteoric rise in the gold market. [22]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ponzi scheme</span> Type of financial fraud

A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, this type of scheme misleads investors by either falsely suggesting that profits are derived from legitimate business activities, or by exaggerating the extent and profitability of the legitimate business activities, leveraging new investments to fabricate or supplement these profits. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as investors continue to contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment or lose faith in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commodity market</span> Physical or virtual transactions of buying and selling involving raw or primary commodities

A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodities market for centuries for price risk management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contango</span> Situation when futures prices are above the expected spot price at maturity

Contango is a situation in which the futures price of a commodity is higher than the expected spot price of the contract at maturity. In a contango situation, arbitrageurs or speculators are "willing to pay more [now] for a commodity [to be received] at some point in the future than the actual expected price of the commodity [at that future point]. This may be due to people's desire to pay a premium to have the commodity in the future rather than paying the costs of storage and carry costs of buying the commodity today." On the other side of the trade, hedgers are happy to sell futures contracts and accept the higher-than-expected returns. A contango market is also known as a normal market or carrying-cost market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic bubble</span> Temporary spike in asset prices

An economic bubble is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be caused by overly optimistic projections about the scale and sustainability of growth, and/or by the belief that intrinsic valuation is no longer relevant when making an investment. They have appeared in most asset classes, including equities, commodities, real estate, and even esoteric assets. Bubbles usually form as a result of either excess liquidity in markets, and/or changed investor psychology. Large multi-asset bubbles, are attributed to central banking liquidity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multinational corporation</span> Corporation operating in multiple countries

A multi-national corporation is a corporate organization that owns and controls the production of goods or services in at least one country other than its home country. Control is considered an important aspect of an MNC to distinguish it from international portfolio investment organizations, such as some international mutual funds that invest in corporations abroad solely to diversify financial risks. Black's Law Dictionary suggests that a company or group should be considered a multi-national corporation "if it derives 25% or more of its revenue from out-of-home-country operations".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nouriel Roubini</span> Iranian-American economist

Nouriel Roubini is a Turkish-born Iranian-American economic consultant, economist, speaker and writer. He is a Professor Emeritus since 2021 at the Stern School of Business of New York University.

A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles, currency crises, and sovereign defaults. Financial crises directly result in a loss of paper wealth but do not necessarily result in significant changes in the real economy.

In finance, risk factors are the building blocks of investing, that help explain the systematic returns in equity market, and the possibility of losing money in investments or business adventures. A risk factor is a concept in finance theory such as the capital asset pricing model, arbitrage pricing theory and other theories that use pricing kernels. In these models, the rate of return of an asset is a random variable whose realization in any time period is a linear combination of other random variables plus a disturbance term or white noise. In practice, a linear combination of observed factors included in a linear asset pricing model proxy for a linear combination of unobserved risk factors if financial market efficiency is assumed. In the Intertemporal CAPM, non-market factors proxy for changes in the investment opportunity set.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Price of oil</span> Spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil

The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus, and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.

Marc Faber is a Swiss investor based in Thailand. He is the publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter, and the director of Marc Faber Ltd, which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager. Faber also serves as director, advisor, and shareholder of a number of investment funds that focus on emerging and frontier markets, including Asia Frontier Capital Ltd.'s AFC Asia Frontier Fund. Faber is credited for advising his clients to get out of the stock market before the October 1987 crash, and with in 2005-06 writing extensively about an impending crash of home prices, prior to the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In 2017 he was criticized for racist remarks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Schiff</span> Stock broker, radio personality, and author

Peter David Schiff is an American stockbroker, financial commentator, and radio personality. He co-founded Echelon Wealth Partners in Canada. He is involved in other financial services companies including Euro Pacific Asset Management, as an independent investment advisor, and Schiff Gold. He has criticised US banking and credit practices.

United States housing prices experienced a major market correction after the housing bubble that peaked in early 2006. Prices of real estate then adjusted downwards in late 2006, causing a loss of market liquidity and subprime defaults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Gold (Control) Act, 1968</span> Act of the Parliament of India, replaces Act 18 of 1965

The Gold (Control) Act, 1968 is a repealed Act of the Parliament of India which was enacted to control sale and holding of gold in personal possession. High demand for gold in India with negligible indigenous production results in gold imports, leading to drastic devaluation of the Indian rupee and depletion of foreign exchange reserves to alarming levels. Devaluation of the Indian rupee also leads to steep rises in food commodity prices due to costlier petroleum products imports. In these circumstances, the gold import policy of India aimed at curbing the gold imports to a manageable level time to time by imposing taxes and legal restrictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoarding (economics)</span> Economic concept

Hoarding in economics refers to the concept of purchasing and storing a large amount of a particular product, creating scarcity of that product, and ultimately driving the price of that product up. Commonly hoarded products include assets such as money, gold and public securities, as well as vital goods such as fuel and medicine. Consumers are primarily hoarding resources so that they can maintain their current consumption rate in the event of a shortage. Hoarding resources can prevent or slow products or commodities from traveling through the economy. Subsequently, this may cause the product or commodity to become scarce, causing the value of the resource to rise.

Michael James Burry is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He founded the hedge fund Scion Capital, which he ran from 2000 until 2008 before closing it to focus on his personal investments. He is best known for being among the first investors to predict and profit from the subprime mortgage crisis between 2007 and 2010.

The 2015-2016 Chinese stock market turbulence began with the popping of a stock market bubble on 12 June 2015 and ended in early February 2016. A third of the value of A-shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange was lost within one month of the event. Major aftershocks occurred around 27 July and 24 August's "Black Monday". By 8–9 July 2015, the Shanghai stock market had fallen 30 percent over three weeks as 1,400 companies, or more than half listed, filed for a trading halt in an attempt to prevent further losses. Values of Chinese stock markets continued to drop despite efforts by the government to reduce the fall. After three stable weeks the Shanghai index fell again by 8.48 percent on 24 August, marking the largest fall since 2007.

The corporate debt bubble is the large increase in corporate bonds, excluding that of financial institutions, following the financial crisis of 2007–08. Global corporate debt rose from 84% of gross world product in 2009 to 92% in 2019, or about $72 trillion. In the world's eight largest economies—the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany—total corporate debt was about $51 trillion in 2019, compared to $34 trillion in 2009. Excluding debt held by financial institutions—which trade debt as mortgages, student loans, and other instruments—the debt owed by non-financial companies in early March 2020 was $13 trillion worldwide, of which about $9.6 trillion was in the U.S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic</span> Economic turmoil associated with the pandemic

Economic turmoil associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has had wide-ranging and severe impacts upon financial markets, including stock, bond, and commodity markets. Major events included a described Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war, which after failing to reach an OPEC+ agreement resulted in a collapse of crude oil prices and a stock market crash in March 2020. The effects upon markets are part of the COVID-19 recession and are among the many economic impacts of the pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 recession</span> Economic downturn, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 recession was a global economic recession caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw stagnation of economic growth and consumer activity, the COVID-19 lockdowns and other precautions taken in early 2020 drove the global economy into crisis. Within seven months, every advanced economy had fallen to recession.

References

  1. ↑ "Fox Business: Stephen Leeb: Gold is a necessary investment". YouTube.com. 2 August 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  2. ↑ "Bloomberg: Stephen Leeb Discusses Outlook for Oil Prices, Demand". YouTube.com. 23 March 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "Bloomberg: Leeb Says Copper Is Becoming a 'Scarcer' Commodity". YouTube.com. 5 October 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  4. ↑ "Charlie Gasparino Recommends Stephen Leeb for Possible Fed Chair". YouTube.com. 21 May 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  5. ↑ From the Foreword by Thomas Kaplan, Chairman, Tigris Financial Group. hachettebookgroup.com. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  6. ↑ "Money Manager Interviews, March 28, 2005". twst.com. 28 March 2005. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  7. ↑ "Leeb, Stephen - Encyclopedia.com". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  8. ↑ New York Times, 2007
  9. ↑ "Dr. Stephen Leeb". King World News. Archived from the original on 2013-01-06.
  10. ↑ The Oil Factor . Издательский дом Вильямс. 2004 – via Internet Archive.
  11. ↑ "Nonfiction Review: Red Alert: How China's Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life by Stephen Leeb with Gregory Dorsey". Publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2012-07-01.
  12. ↑ "THE Voice of the Independent Publishing Industry". Independent Publisher. Retrieved 2012-07-01.
  13. 1 2 "Dr. Stephen Leeb". Leeb Capital Management. Retrieved 2012-08-12.
  14. ↑ "EnCana buys rest of Leor's Texas stake". Canada.com. Nov 5, 2007. Archived from the original on January 18, 2013. Retrieved 2012-08-12.
  15. ↑ The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself and Profit from the Coming Energy Crisis, by Stephen Leeb and Donna Leeb. Copyright 2004.
  16. ↑ Getting in on the Ground Floor, by Stephen Leeb, copyright 1986.
  17. 1 2 Defying the Market, by Stephen Leeb and Donna Leeb, copyright 1999.
  18. ↑ The Coming Economic Collapse, by Stephen Leeb and Glen Strathy, copyright 2006.
  19. ↑ The Coming Economic Collapse, by Stephen Leeb with Gregory Dorsey, copyright 2011.
  20. ↑ Red Alert, by Stephen Leeb and Gregory Dorsey, copyright 2011.
  21. ↑ "This Is Why China Plans To Send The Price Of Gold Skyrocketing". June 12, 2017.
  22. ↑ Golomb, Robert (18 November 2020). "Author And Financial Authority Stephen Leeb PhD Advises: Buy Gold; Believes "Ten-Fold Increase" Coming; Details On New Book Release". The Published Reporter. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.