- Mark Spitznagel, founder and chief investment officer of Universa Investments, has a reputation as one of the gloomiest investors on Wall Street but has been very bullish since 2022. The “Black Swan” hedge fund guru maintains his view that a “euphoric high” is ahead, but also still sees the “largest bubble in human history” popping eventually and a crash worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
U.S. stocks have taken a beating so far this year as President Donald Trump ramps up his trade war and slashes federal payrolls, but this is not a bubble bursting, according to Mark Spitznagel, founder and chief investment officer of Universa Investments.
His hedge fund specializes in tail-risk hedging, a strategy that seeks to prevent losses from unforeseeable and unlikely economic catastrophes, also known as “black swans.”
That’s earned him a reputation as one of the gloomiest investors on Wall Street. But in fact, he has been bullish on the market since 2022 and still feels that way.
At the same time, Spitznagel has also been warning of a massive bubble and expects an epic reckoning to hit the market eventually.
“That’s what we should all be concerned about right now—the largest bubble in human history popping,” he told Fortune in an interview Friday.
That’s the result of an explosion of debt that was punctured by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking cycle in 2022 and 2023, according to Spitznagel. While the central bank has since pivoted to rate cuts, there are still lag effects from the tightening.
For now, Spitznagel views the recent market selloff as a “head fake” that’s one of the zigzags along a cycle that will play out like others have throughout history.
Because it’s definitely not different this time, and it never is, he argued. When the bubble does burst, it will be obvious and more destructive than the Great Financial Crisis.
“I think, when this is over, we’re going to see something far worse than ’08, ’09,” Spitznagel warned. “I think the market’s going to crash, like, 80%.”
But right now, he thinks he’s the most bullish investment manager out there. One reason is that the economy still hasn’t gone south and appears to be taking longer than expected to roll over, which probably means even more upside ahead.
That helps reinforce expectations for a soft landing. And when you add the Fed’s dovish tilt, it creates a “Goldilocks zone” for the market, Spitznagel explained.
“I’ve been calling for a blow-off euphoric high for two and a half years,” he said. “I’m still waiting for that. I think it’s still probably going to happen.”
By contrast, Wall Street is sounding increasingly bearish lately, cutting year-end targets for the S&P 500 and raising recession odds, with some as high as 50%.
The Fed’s most recent economic projections point to slower growth and hotter inflation, raising fears of stagflation.
At some point, Spitznagel also knows the party will be over, though he cautions against trying to pinpoint an exact timeline.
Eventually, a severe recession will arrive, and the Fed will step in with more supportive monetary policy, he said, predicting another blast of ultralow rates and quantitative easing.
Spitznagel expects the economy and the central bank to play out like this: “You’ve got these conflicting crosscurrents of soft landing, easy Fed. And soft landing turns to hard landing, easy Fed. [Then] you’ve got hard landing, panicking Fed. And that’s a crash.”
But again, he insists he’s bullish right now, though the environment is ripe for something bad to happen. He told Bloomberg TV in September that markets had entered black swan territory.
Market failures tend to happen when the economy pivots, Spitznagel told Fortune, pointing to slowing growth, cooling inflation, and falling bond yields.
“This is sort of slowly turning like a tanker, and that’s put us in black swan territory for sure,” he said. “As that accelerates, we really need to be on the lookout.”
