David Hunter has been involved in the investment business for the past 36 years. He has served as Chief Investment Strategist for KCCI, Ltd, for whom he publishes the Contrarian Value Advisor market letter, since 2001. Prior to KCCI, Ltd, he was Chief Investment Officer at Schaenen, Wood & Associates, a billion dollar money management firm. Before Schaenen, Wood & Associates, he served as Head of Active Equities for ITT Hartford. Prior to ITT Hartford, he was at Fidelity Investments where he was a Senior VP and portfolio manager in Global Equities. Prior to Fidelity, David served as Senior VP and Equity Manager for Textron Investment Management.
David graduated from Valparaiso University in 1973 with a BS in Finance. He received his MBA from DePaul University in 1976. He earned his CFA designation in 1980.
Throughout his career David has been a contrarian and has approached investing from a top-down, macroeconomic perspective, with a heavy emphasis on cycle analysis. Historically, this approach often puts him at odds with the popular consensus. However, it has enabled David to correctly anticipate many of the significant economic and market cycles which have occurred in the last three decades, and to do so far in advance of most pundits on Wall Street.
For example, in 1982, David determined that inflation was making a major peak and that the next decade would be dominated by disinflation. In response, he heavily over-weighted the out of favor consumer growth stocks and zero-weighted energy and commodities. In 1992, David understood that the out of favor capital goods stocks were near fifty year lows relative to consumer stocks. As a result, he made invested heavily in technology stocks, particularly in the semiconductor and semi conductor equipment group. In October of 2000, David warned that the technology bubble resembled the nifty fifty market of 1972 and that the NASDAQ could fall by more than 50%. Another lonely call was in February 2005 when David began warning that a credit bubble was forming that could lead to a financial collapse. He recommended avoiding financial and housing stocks and loading up on gold. In 2006, David predicted that as a result of the credit bust, the Federal Reserve would be forced to print money at a rate many times faster than at any other time in history.
David’s current outlook is once again at odds with the consensus and calls for a deflationary recession this year, complete with collapsing commodity prices, a systemic financial crisis and plunging stock markets. As David says, the Armageddon scenario is likely to revisit us.
