Dow 36,000

Published in September 1999, this book argued with great confidence that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would hit 36,000 within three to five years. It didn't — not until November 2021, twenty-two years later, after a dot-com crash, the September 11 attacks, a financial crisis, and a pandemic intervened. It has been called, fairly, one of the most spectacularly wrong investing books ever published. And yet: the valuation methodology in its first half engages seriously with equity risk premiums, and the book sparked real debate among economists. Read it now as a fascinating historical artifact of 1990s irrational exuberance — not as investment guidance. The intellectual history is worth something; the specific forecast is not.