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

In trying to predict oil prices, a difficult task has recently been made more difficult. That’s because of all the noise surrounding China’s putative slowdown. Putative, first, because China’s growth is in line with the country’s own projections. And second, because, if it’s below the West’s earlier expectations, the reason… Read More

The first three and a half years of this decade have been momentous, and not in a good way. The chaos of the pandemic. The war in Ukraine and its global repercussions, as the West’s efforts to throttle Russia have boomeranged. And now, if you believe all the recent reporting… Read More

As the saying goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. This is particularly apt when it comes to energy. While the IEA crows that solar energy capacity has doubled since 2017, this seemingly high figure needs context. It translates into 800 additional terawatt hours of solar… Read More

It suddenly feels as if in some ways, though not all, we’ve returned to earlier times. For most of the years from the 1970s through the 2008-09 Great Recession, the investment rule of thumb was that signs of economic weakness were bullish for the market, while strong economic data, which… Read More

The most recent Fed committee meeting conveyed an impression of Fed uncertainty about the economy. The Fed opted to keep Fed funds unchanged while simultaneously raising its forecast for how high it would raise this key interest rate eventually. The explanation for the mixed messaging was opaque, and some economists… Read More