Apart from fretting over the imminent demise of our planet, Jeremy Grantham appears to be having fun with himself.

Periodic grumbling about markets being overvalued in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 noticed him dismissed (as soon as once more) as an outdated permabearish sourpuss. After hovering within the wake of the monetary disaster, GMO’s fortunes waned as soon as extra, and Grantham stepped again to dedicate himself to combating local weather change.

However his January 2022 word Let The Wild Rumpus Start set the tone for this 12 months, predicting that the “fourth superbubble of the final hundred years” had lastly reached its zenith and would imminently deflate. Since then it’s principally been carnage on world markets.

This summer season has seen some respite, on hopes {that a} recession just isn’t imminent and/or that central financial institution will quickly pivot away from tightening financial coverage. Sadly, Grantham is now out with a new paper rubbishing these hopes, and advising buyers to “put together for an epic finale”.

The present superbubble options an unprecedentedly harmful mixture of cross-asset overvaluation (with bonds, housing, and shares all critically overpriced and now quickly shedding momentum), commodity shock, and Fed hawkishness. Every cycle is totally different and distinctive — however each historic parallel means that the worst is but to return.

No matter chances are you’ll consider Grantham, his newest missive — titled Coming into The Superbubble’s Closing Act — is value studying. As all the time, it’s a well-written, fascinating and lucid dissection of the present atmosphere, albeit from somebody who appears to be like at world from a fairly downbeat angle.

Not that he’s in lonely firm in the intervening time. Most analysts and a good few buyers appear fairly positive that the summer season bounce was a basic bear market rally — which is now beginning to unravel once more as central banks reiterate that they very a lot stay in tightening mode. Grantham factors out that that is par for the course.

Just lately, we now have seen a bear market rally. It has to date performed out precisely in step with its three historic precedents, the bear market rallies that marked the center part of deflating superbubbles.

If the bear market has already ended, the parallels with the three different US superbubbles — to date so surprisingly in line — could be utterly damaged. That is all the time potential. Every cycle is totally different, and every authorities response is unpredictable.

However these few epic occasions appear to behave in response to their very personal guidelines, in their very own play, which has apparently simply paused between the third and remaining act. If historical past repeats, the play will as soon as once more be a Tragedy. We should hope this time for a minor one.