Billionaire investor Carl Icahn spoke to CNBC via telephone this morning and had some very ominous warnings after what he has seen in the last few days.
Reflecting on the market’s moves recently, Icahn shocked the anchors by saying:
“This is something we’ve never seen before… I don’t remember ever seeing a market with this kind of volatility over two weeks.”
“The market has become a much more dangerous place [due to index funds and ETFs]… it’s like 2008 where everyone was buying mortgages and CDS.”
Concluding that: “Passive investing is the bubble right now.”
“There is going to be a major, major, major correction.”
“This is a manifestation of a real deep problem we have in our markets.”
“There is a huge bubble of passive money flowing in… a sort of euphoria and a lot of people are going to pay the price just like in 1929.“
Icahn then took his warning to 11…
“I do think the market will bounce back but these are the rumblings before the earthquake.”
“The market is telling you something… it’s telling you it’s very dangerous…it’s way over-leveraged.“
Which, as we noted previously, is a fact…
And that is one reason why Icahn fears…
“Eventually, there’s going to be a bigger problem than 2009 and 1929, eventually. A major storm is coming, could be 5 years, could be 5 months.”
Icahn ended by noting that “no one can tell you what the market is going to do – its almost farcical to think you can,” but added that this is what he thought would happen, based in his research.
As a reminder, Icahn warned previously,
“I am still concerned that one day you’ll see a break like you had a few weeks ago…but it won’t come back.“
CNBC, of course, was careful to provide some cover for their advertisers, noting that while Icahn said “this casino is on steroids — the market is a casino on steroids,” they add that the veteran market-watcher said, this is not “the explosive time.”
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