Stephen Leeb

Stephen Leeb, Ph.D. is the Chief Investment Strategist of The Complete Investor and Real World Investing.

Dr. Leeb’s books have been notable for predicting the secular bull market that started in the 1980s (Getting in on the Ground Floor, Putnam, 1986); the tech stock crash and rise of real assets, including oil and gold (Defying the Market: Profiting in the Turbulent Post-Technology Market Boom, McGraw-Hill, 1999); and the surge in oil prices (The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself and Profit from the Coming Energy Crisis, Warner Books, 2004). His national bestseller, The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel (Warner Books, 2006), co-authored with Glen Strathy, outlined the biggest challenges facing the US economy, and accurately predicted the 2008 sub prime mortgage crisis as well as the vicious subsequent economic cycle requiring massive infusions of government stimulus, near zero interest rates and much higher federal debt levels. Game Over: How You Can Prosper in a Shattered Economy (Business Plus, 2009) predicted a permanent peak in global commodity production. Dr. Leeb’s eighth and latest book, Red Alert (Hachette, 2011), outlined China’s growing prosperity and the ways in which its demands on increasingly scarce resources threaten the American way of life.

Among his many speaking engagements, he has been the keynote speaker at both a JPMorgan Chase energy conference and a Royal Bank of Canada commodities conference.

Dr. Leeb received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He then earned his master’s degree in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois in just three years, an academic record that stands to date. He is frequently quoted in the financial media, including Investors Business Daily, USA Today, Business Week, The New York Times, NPR and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, Dr. Leeb is a regular guest on Fox News, Bloomberg, CNN and Neil Cavuto.

Analyst Articles

Drugs for fatal diseases that afflict only a few By Stephen Leeb Most drug companies have been understandably reluctant to devote their resources to develop drugs that tackle “orphan” diseases, those afflicting a relative handful of people (typically fewer than 1 in 2,000), since the number of potential patients is… Read More

Its new drug shows spectacular results By Stephen Leeb Now that Allergan’s takeover by Actavis is all but certain, we are selling Allergan for a more than decent short-term profit (roughly 15 percent in less than three months). To maintain our weighting in the vibrant health care sector (see p.1),… Read More

Why oil’s plunge hasn’t sparked a rally By Stephen Leeb In the past, sharp drops in oil prices have led to big market rallies. So what’s different this time around? After all, cheaper oil remains tantamount to a major tax cut for consumers, essentially free money that boosts spending and… Read More

A diversified bet on renewables and energy efficiency By Stephen Leeb Suppose you don’t want to bet on the timing of an upturn in oil prices. Indeed, suppose you want nothing to do with oil or with stocks directly leveraged to oil but you’re very confident—as we are—that an upturn… Read More

Fracking’s decline affects multiple industries By Stephen Leeb Fracking, as we discuss in our front page article, is destined to shrink in a big way. This will affect a lot of other industries, including the railroad industry, which is closely tied to fracking. The massive amounts of materials that fracking… Read More

Water stocks will pump out big profits By Stephen Leeb Food, energy, and water. They’re all critical to human life, and they’re deeply interlinked. Of the three, water has tended to get the least attention. But that will change. Fierce droughts in parts of the U.S. and elsewhere, depletion of… Read More

Silver is an essential component of photovoltaic cells By Stephen Leeb The recent agreement between President Obama and China’s President Xi setting ambitious goals for cutting carbon emissions is one more reason to believe that silver prices are headed sky-high. That’s why our Spotlight stock this month is our favorite… Read More

Deere, Ecolab, and Flowserve all help manage water By Stephen Leeb Recently we issued a Red Alert advising subscribers to close out long-term recommendation Qualcomm for a 108.5 percent gain. The reason was the difficulty of predicting the outcomes of investigations relating to royalty payments that Qualcomm receives. China, which… Read More

You can learn a lot from a stock’s PEG By Stephen Leeb The market’s recent wild gyrations make it more important than ever for investors to follow a disciplined, time-tested approach to picking stocks. There are many metrics available to describe stocks—price to sales, price to earnings, free cash flow,… Read More

Long-term tailwinds just temporarily stilled By Stephen Leeb This issue our spotlight shines on Cummins Inc., whose energy-efficient engines and related products make it an unsung hero behind the diminished demand in the U.S. and elsewhere for gasoline. Further buffing its virtuous credentials, the company also sells products that reduce… Read More