Stephen Leeb

Stephen Leeb, Ph.D. is the Chief Investment Strategist of The Complete Investor and Real World Investing.

Dr. Leeb’s books have been notable for predicting the secular bull market that started in the 1980s (Getting in on the Ground Floor, Putnam, 1986); the tech stock crash and rise of real assets, including oil and gold (Defying the Market: Profiting in the Turbulent Post-Technology Market Boom, McGraw-Hill, 1999); and the surge in oil prices (The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself and Profit from the Coming Energy Crisis, Warner Books, 2004). His national bestseller, The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel (Warner Books, 2006), co-authored with Glen Strathy, outlined the biggest challenges facing the US economy, and accurately predicted the 2008 sub prime mortgage crisis as well as the vicious subsequent economic cycle requiring massive infusions of government stimulus, near zero interest rates and much higher federal debt levels. Game Over: How You Can Prosper in a Shattered Economy (Business Plus, 2009) predicted a permanent peak in global commodity production. Dr. Leeb’s eighth and latest book, Red Alert (Hachette, 2011), outlined China’s growing prosperity and the ways in which its demands on increasingly scarce resources threaten the American way of life.

Among his many speaking engagements, he has been the keynote speaker at both a JPMorgan Chase energy conference and a Royal Bank of Canada commodities conference.

Dr. Leeb received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He then earned his master’s degree in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois in just three years, an academic record that stands to date. He is frequently quoted in the financial media, including Investors Business Daily, USA Today, Business Week, The New York Times, NPR and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, Dr. Leeb is a regular guest on Fox News, Bloomberg, CNN and Neil Cavuto.

Analyst Articles

Last decade saw OPEC+ pumping oil in an all-out effort to dislodge shale producers. The result: by early 2016 oil had tumbled to the mid-$20s, from above $100 two years earlier. Cartel production was some 4 million barrels above 2014 levels. Shale production, though, while below its peak, was still… Read More

Whenever the Fed is tightening, investors should get cautious. That’s especially true when, like now, the Fed has no way to get it right. There’s no middle ground today between tightening too little, which means letting inflation rage, and tightening too much, incurring an economic meltdown. But don’t conclude you… Read More

As inflation rises, we’re super focused on making sure our Growth Portfolio picks are up to thriving in a changing world. We’re taking two tacks. First, when inflation rises, the advantage shifts from growth stocks to value plays. So we’re increasingly attuned to growth recommendations with a value component. That’s… Read More

The U.S. dollar’s grip as the world’s reserve currency seems to be getting weaker, with several recent developments pointing to major pieces for a new reserve system falling into place. I expect the new monetary system, as I’ve discussed before, once fully implemented, will be linked to gold. You may… Read More

Inflation matters for stocks. You can divide the postwar years into three periods. In the first, from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, inflation averaged about 2.5%, as the Dow rose from around 170 to a high near 1050. That remained the high point until 1982,… Read More

Short-term swings in the oil market are neither unusual nor particularly meaningful. It wasn’t surprising that this fall’s sharply overbought market, with oil moving above $85 in October, led to an oversold market in the low $60s. In today’s world, there always will be triggers for profit-taking and sharp reversals… Read More