GMO’s Inker Sees Losses for Stocks in Coming Seven Years

U.S. stocks will decline over the next seven years after almost tripling from their 2009 lows because they are overvalued, said Ben Inker, head of global asset allocation at investment firm Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co.

The decline will happen either through a “quick bear market or a longer period of more of less flat returns,” Inker said in a letter released yesterday. Stock prices may still rise 20 percent to 30 percent over the next year or two before collapsing, Jeremy Grantham, the Boston-based money manager’s chief investment strategist, wrote in the same letter.