When will the next stock market crash occur?

We are going to have a stock market crash, and possibly a recession, during President Donald Trump's first term. That is inevitable; the question is when. With this blog post, I’m going to try to let you know when far enough in advance that you can take action if you wish. I will update this page as I get more information.

I’m using the stock market crash on October 19, 1987 (United States) and subsequent recession (from July 1990 to March 1991) as my model. Note that anybody younger than 50 is unlikely to know much about these events. Note that I did not own any stock in October 1987 so I wasn't directly affected.

I successfully predicted the July 1990 recession in March 1990. I didn't think of it until September 1990 when a colleague reminded me that I had told him in March that there would be a recession. One of the problems with recessions is that you don't know when they start because it takes several months for the government economists to determine that a recession did indeed take place.

I do not expect the next crash to be as severe as the one in 1987. The stock market did eventually recover to where it was before the crash so people who had invested before the crash and then ignored it were made whole. I will discuss this in further updates: How long will it be before the stock market recovers from the crash?

July 19, 2018 At this point, my best guess is the 4th quarter of 2019 for the stock market crash.

Before making any investment decisions based on my advice, please read my Investment advice disclaimer.

Amtrak crash in Philadelphia: A possible scenario

Thanks to reporting by the New York Times in this story, I have put together a possible scenario of the events leading up to the crash of Train 188:

1. The train leaves the North Philadelphia station and accelerates at maximum power to a planned 80 mph.

2. A rock strikes the train, damaging the windshield.

3. At some point, the engineer is supposed to take the throttle to idle and then apply the brakes to reduce the speed to 50 mph for the curve.

4. However, the engineer is distracted by the rock striking the windshield and doesn't start braking at the correct time.

5. Still accelerating at maximum power, the train continues past 80 mph to 106 mph.

6. The engineer regains concentration, realizes the train is going too fast, and applies the emergency brake.

7. But it's too late. The train tries to go around the curve at 104 mph, derails and crashes.

A Septa and an Acela train were also hit by rocks about the same time. Note that the engineer in the Septa train that was hit was shaken up enough by the incident that he couldn't continue driving the train.

The rock throwing has continued for many years. It's one of those things that the authorities don't worry about until someone dies. With this accident, eight people have died. The problem will now be fixed.