The Making of a Market Guru: Forbes Presents 25 Years of Ken Fisher

Chapter 17. 2000: Tech Bubbles Over

"All correctly constructed major equity indexes will have almost identical returns over the next 30 years. One will wax while another wanes, but over such a long time span they'll come out roughly even."

—"What to Do About Tech," May 29, 2000

"A key lesson from behavioral finance is that people hate losses much more than they like gains. Normal folks feel the pain of loss about 2.5 times as keenly as they enjoy a gain of the same size. So when Uncle Sam takes from some to give to others, confidence falls and financial markets suffer."

—"Gephardt for Speaker," September 4, 2000

Ken was on a roll as 2000 began. He had more or less correctly called the last two bear markets and kept his readers invested for the entirety of the bull markets in between. His forecasts for annual returns during the bull market years were darn good too. "Twice, in 1995 and 1999, I've had the single most accurate projection of any nationally published forecaster. While some of my forecasts were wide of the mark, my method has never put me on the wrong side of the market." ("Break Their Crystal Balls," April 3, 2000.)

But some of Ken's most prescient forecasts were yet to come. One of the most notable was his column "1980 Revisited" in which Ken correctly called a top in the Technology sector. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite's amazing 1999 returns carried over into the first months of 2000. By early March, the Nasdaq was already up over 24 percent while the broader S&P 500 was ...