Gary Shilling

Gary Shilling, Ph.D., is an economic consultant and investment adviser as well as a long-time columnist for Forbes magazine. He is President of A. Gary Shilling & Co., Inc., an investment adviser registered with the State of New Jersey Bureau of Securities, and publishes A. Gary Shilling’s INSIGHT, a monthly report of economic forecasts and investment strategies. Dr. Shilling is a columnist for Bloomberg View online. He has been a Forbes magazine columnist since 1983 and writes the “Financial Strategy” column.

He received his bachelor’s degree in physics, magna cum laude, from Amherst College where he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. Earlier, as a high school senior, he ranked 12th in the nation in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Dr. Shilling earned his master’s degree and doctorate in economics at Stanford University. While on the West Coast, he served on the staffs of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Bank of America.

Before establishing his own firm in 1978, Dr. Shilling was Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of White, Weld & Co., Inc. Earlier, he set up the Economics Department at Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith at age 29 and served as the firm’s chief economist. Prior to Merrill Lynch, he was with Standard Oil Co. (NJ) (now ExxonMobil) where he was in charge of U.S. and Canadian economic analysis and forecasting.

A frequent contributor to the financial press, he also appears on radio and television business shows. Recognized as an effective and dynamic speaker, he often addresses national and international business groups including the Young Presidents’ Organization and the Bohemian Grove in a Lakeside Talk.

Dr. Shilling has published numerous articles on the business outlook and techniques of economic analysis and forecasting. His fourth book, Deflation: why it’s coming, whether it’s good or bad, and how it will affect your investments, business and personal affairs, was published in June 1998, and Korean and Chinese editions were published. Its sequel, Deflation: how to survive and thrive in the coming wave of deflation was published by McGraw Hill in July 1999 and was translated into a Chinese edition. His sixth book is Letting Off Steam – a collection of commentaries on matters great and small, complex and mundane, serious and frivolous. Dr. Shilling’s best-selling book, The Age of Deleveraging: Investment strategies for a decade of slow growth and deflation, was published by John Wiley & Sons in late 2010. He is also creator of The Deflation Game, a board game that illustrates and reinforces his long-term forecast that deflation is a greater likelihood than a return to high inflation. Dr. Shilling does not manage any mutual funds, but CNBC anchor Bill Griffeth was so impressed with his investment approach that he profiled him along with 19 other well-known mutual fund managers in his book, The Mutual Fund Masters (Probus Publishing, 1995).

Dr. Shilling is well known for his forecasting record. In the spring of 1969, he was among the few who correctly saw that a recession would start late in the year. In 1973, he stood alone among nationally-recognized experts in forecasting that the world was entering a massive inventory-building spree to be followed by the first major worldwide recession since the 1930s. In the late 1970s, when most thought that raging inflation would last forever, he alone said that the shifting political mood of the country would lead to an end of severe inflation, as well as to potentially serious financial and economic readjustment problems, and a shift in investment strategy from one favoring tangible assets to emphasis on stocks and bonds. Subsequently, he has become known as “Doctor Disinflation.”

On January 2, 1986, The Wall Street Journal noted: “One year ago, 23 of the 24 economists in this newspaper’s survey predicted that the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds, then 11.53%, would close 1985 in double digits. Instead, the bond closed Tuesday (December 31, 1985) at 9.27%… The only forecaster who had expected a single-digit yield was A. Gary Shilling…”

Six months later, the June 3, 1986 edition of the Journal stated: “Mr. Shilling’s interest-rate forecasts of six months ago proved to be very close to the mark. He had expected a 6% rate on three-month Treasury bills and an 8% yield on 30-year Treasury bonds by the middle of this year. Those were by far the closest of the 25 analysts polled last December.”

In January 1987, the Journal said, “According to the average estimate of 25 economists surveyed The Wall Street Journal a year ago, the 30-year Treasury bond yield would rise to 9.76% by Dec. 31, 1986, from 9.27% at the end of 1985. That prediction turned out to be more than 2-1/4 percentage points too high. The best estimate came from Mr. Shilling, who said 8%.”

The July 5, 1991 edition of The Wall Street Journal stated, “Mr. Shilling was one of the few analysts a year ago to forecast a recession. At that time, he said a recession ´may already have started,’ a forecast that now looks prophetic.”

The Journal’s July 6, 1992 edition said: “Looking back at the July 1991 survey, nobody even came close in forecasting today’s short-term rates. The average forecast a year ago for three-month T-bills at mid-1992 was 6.08%. That was too high by 2.45 percentage points. Mr. Shilling came closest at 4.50%.”

The January 4, 1993 Journal edition, noting that Treasury bill rates were 3.15% at the end of 1992, assessed forecasts made one year earlier and declared, “Gary Shilling came very close, with his prediction of 3%.” (He was) “among the few at the time who predicted that short-term rates would drop in 1992, as they did. The average at that time called for the T-bill yield to increase to 4.25% by the end of 1992.”

The January 22, 1993 edition reviewed the track records of interest rate forecasters polled semi-annually by the Journal since 1981 and said, “The economist with by far…the best record in picking when to buy long-term bonds: A. Gary Shilling, who heads an economic consulting firm and manages money. During the 1980s, Mr. Shilling…saw sharply lower interest rates ahead…investors who bet on his rate forecasts by putting their money in long-term bonds did very well.”

The July 7, 1997 edition stated that “Mr. Shilling…had the best overall forecast” of the economy, interest rates, exchange rates and inflation “among the…57 economists polled in the latest survey.”

The January 2, 2003 edition, in reviewing the forecasts of its poll made 6 months earlier, stated “In June, only one forecaster….Gary Shilling, expected the Fed to cut short-term interest rates in the second half, as it did in November….Only one forecaster, again Mr. Shilling, expected the Dow Jones Industrial Average to finish the year below 9000. Twenty-seven of the 55 saw it finishing the year above 10,000.” (It finished at 8342).

A poll of financial institutions conducted by the Institutional Investor magazine twice ranked Dr. Shilling as Wall Street’s top economist. Futures magazine rated him the country’s number one Commodity Trading Advisor. In addition, MoneySense Magazine named him the third best stock market forecaster in the world, right behind Warren Buffett.

Dr. Shilling’s outlook for 2008 was extremely accurate, and all 13 of his investment strategies published in his January 2008 Insight worked. The random odds of batting 13 for 13 are one in 8,192.

Dr. Shilling is on the Board of Directors of Project Apis m., the Episcopal Preaching Foundation, Inc., of which he is Chairman, and is an Advisory Director of Austin Trust Company. In 1999, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law by Tiffin University and in 2006, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Church Divinity School of the Pacific. In 2008, Dr. Shilling was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and in 2009, an honorary Doctor of Canon Law from the University of the South (Sewanee). In 2016, he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from The General Theological Seminary (NYC).

He is a former member of the New York Stock Exchange and a former Director of the American Republic Life Insurance Co. of N.Y., the Henry H. Kessler Foundation, Inc., The Episcopal Church Foundation, Kent Place School, National Life of Vermont, the American Productivity and Quality Center and Aim Packaging, Inc. He served as Trustee and Treasurer of the General Theological Seminary (Episcopal), Chairman and Trustee of the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Trustee of Bates College, and Director of the Heartland family of mutual funds. He was also formerly a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts and an Associate Editor of Business Economics (The Journal of the National Association for Business Economics). He was Chairman of the New Jersey State Revenue Forecasting Advisory Commission. He earlier served as a member of the National Commission on Jobs and Small Business. Dr. Shilling was an informal economic advisor to President George H. W. Bush, and has testified before various Congressional committees including the Joint Economic Committee and the House Banking Committee. He has been an Executive in Residence at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and at Sewanee: The University of the South (Sewanee).

He is also an avid beekeeper.

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