Yahoo Finance – by Aaron TaskAnyone who follows the financial markets in recent years has come to expect dramatic proclamations of doom from Peter Schiff, president of EuroPacific Capital.
Schiff remains an ardent critic of the Federal Reserve and hasn’t reversed his long-term concerns about the fate of the U.S. economy, currency and stocks. But judging by the accompanying interview, he seems to have learned a lesson or two about the challenge of fighting in the Fed.
“If the Fed actually did what it’s threatening to do – which is to completely remove all the monetary props beneath the market, to wind down QE to zero and the eventually begin to increase increase interest rates, then I think the market will head substantially lower,” he tells Lauren Lyster. “But I don’t believe they’ll do that. I still think the Fed is going to end up aborting the taper which will support the market and prevent it from really collapsing.”
So is Peter Schiff turning bullish on U.S. stocks? Of course not.
Correctly, he notes that the average stock is struggling this year; the Russell 2000 is down 2.5% year to date and fell again Monday even as the S&P and Dow hit record highs.
“The Fed is barely finished its tapering process — we still have a long way to go — and the air is already coming out of the bubble,” he says. “I don’t think there’s going to be a big drop in the averages but I still think a lot of these momentum stocks…will continue to trend lower.”
In addition remaining more optimistic about international vs. U.S. equities, Schiff remains stubbornly bullish on the outlook for commodities and precious metals, despite gold’s recent struggles.
“I think the Fed will abort this [tapering] process and reverse it…but the rally is going to be more in commodities, precious metals and foreign currencies when the Fed has to admit it was wrong and do more QE,” he says.
So the real bet here is who will admit they’re wrong first: Schiff or the Fed?
Aaron Task is the host of The Daily Ticker and Editor-in-Chief of Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter at @aarontask or email him at altask@yahoo.com.