Ed Yardeni
{{Short description|Israeli-American economist}}
Edward Yardeni is an Israeli-born American economist. He is the president of Yardeni Research. He is the former chief economist for Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. Yardeni is known for his coining of the "Fed model", a disputed theory of equity valuation, and his economic predictions, including predictions that the Year 2000 problem would cause severe economic problems.
Biography
Yardeni was born in Haifa, Israel. His father worked as an engineer and his mother as a teacher. When he was 7, his family moved to the United States, first settling in Cleveland, Ohio, though his family later moved to Campbell, California, and New Rochelle, New York. He attended Cornell University,{{Cite news |last=Mathews |first=Jay |date=1995-11-26 |title=Who's The Bull Here? Analysts Edward Yardeni and Dan Sullivan Have Always Defied Wall Street Wisdom. One of Them Foresaw Dow 5000 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1995/11/26/whos-the-bull-here-analysts-edward-yardeni-and-dan-sullivan-have-always-defied-wall-street-wisdom-one-of-them-foresaw-dow-5000/870c2ed2-b7e3-445d-bd66-c73106a99d68/ |access-date=2025-05-04 |work=The Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}} and pursued higher education at Yale University, where he earned a PhD in economics. He taught at Columbia Business School after graduation, and also had stints working for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the US Department of the Treasury.{{Cite news |last=Ellis |first=John |date=1998-11-17 |title=Y2K puts scare into Wall Street's biggest bull |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-orange-leader-y2k-puts-scare-into-wa/171187964/ |access-date=2025-04-27 |work=The Orange Leader |pages=4}}
By the 1990s, Yardeni was a well regarded economic forecaster. He drew media attention for his bullish predictions for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In 1998, he was named as having done the best job of forecasting the nation's economy for last quarter of 1997 in a semiannual survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal.{{Cite web |last=Bleakley |first=Fred R. |date=January 2, 1998 |title=Economist Edward Yardeni Wins Forecasting Honors for Late '97 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB883701528327756000 |work=Wall Street Journal |via=www.wsj.com}}
In the late 1990s, Yardeni coined the "Fed model", a disputed theory of equity valuation that compares the stock market's forward earnings yield to the nominal yield on long-term government bonds, and that the stock market – as a whole – is fairly valued, when the one-year forward-looking I/B/E/S earnings yield equals the 10-year nominal Treasury yield; deviations suggest over-or-under valuation. He first used the term when commenting on a report on the July 1997 Humphrey-Hawkins testimony by the then-Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan on equity valuations.{{cite magazine |date=29 November 2012 |title=Burying the "Fed model" |url=https://www.economist.com/buttonwoods-notebook/2012/11/29/burying-the-fed-model |access-date=17 December 2020 |magazine=The Economist}} In 2014, Yardeni noted that the predictive power of the Fed model stopped working almost as soon as he noted the relationship.{{cite web |last=Yardeni |first=Dr. Edward |date=28 April 2014 |title=The 'Fed Model' Is Better At Predicting Corporate Financial Behavior Than Investment Returns |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/the-fed-model-buybacks-and-ma-2014-4?r=US&IR=T |access-date=24 December 2020 |website=Business Insider}}
In the lead up to the year 2000, Yardeni predicted that computer problems related to the Year 2000 would lead to a recession that year by disrupting global supply chains, sinking earnings projections for thousands of companies, and bursting the stock market bubble.{{Cite web |last=Feder |first=Barnaby J. |date=August 29, 1999 |title=In My... Briefcase: Edward Yardeni |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/29/business/in-my-briefcase-edward-yardeni.html |work=The New York Times |via=NYTimes.com}}{{Cite web |last=Fuerbringer |first=Jonathan |date=January 6, 2000 |title=Market Analyst Concedes Recession Forecast Wrong |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/06yardeni.html |access-date=2025-05-04 |website=The New York Times}} In January 2000, after no major issues occurred, he admitted he had been wrong.
In 2018, Yardeni published Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography.{{cite web | url=https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/research/financial-analysts-journal/2018/predicting-the-markets | title=Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography (A review) | date=20 July 2018 | volume=13 | issue=1 }} In 2021, he published In Praise of Profits!.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/profit-with-honor/|title=Profit with Honor|website=National Review |date=March 4, 2022}}
References
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