I find the economic analysis here extremely compelling, but it's worth noting that at least one of the Hussman funds has had pretty awful returns historically:
Ask yourself, "if his understanding of markets and economics is correct, how come he is consistently wrong, over and over, in his investment decisions?"
This guy has been weaving stories about economics for years and years and been consistently wrong for years and years.
His understanding of how economics and markets work is simply incorrect (even if it sounds compelling).
it's an interesting perspective that provides a dissenting opinion. it doesn't really need to be correct to stimulate thought and lead you to a better disposition in your own investments.
notably, he makes no specific suggestions on what kind of stuff people should buy or what they should do to take advantage of both the upside (the bubble) and the downside (the crash). it might be because there is some law stopping him from giving that advice, i'm not sure.
Being a big shorter isn't for the weary.... Most will accumulate large losses until they go bankrupt or the freak black swan happens and they make 1000x% for the trouble (erasing the accumulated losses very quickly, if smartly positioned).
On the otherside, Bullish banks/etc will make small profits consistently for long periods of time on bullish bets but when the black swan happens, will lose everything they made over the years and more, to the shorters (in 2008 banks had record profits until they lost more money than banks ever made in the history of modern banking).
1. Determining skill from luck is difficult if we have a very small sample of successful trades (e.g. shorting banks correctly in 2008, but getting everything else wrong)
2. In order for a diversified investor (e.g. into FTSE World, some bonds and precious metals) to lose everything would require one hell of a black swan. Some kind of forceful expropriation of their assets is much more likely.
The problem for the shorters now is that the exact same arguments they are making now could have been made 5 years ago.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HSGFX?p=HSGFX
What I take away from this is that understanding macroeconomic trends is different than being a successful investor.