The Making of a Permabear - by Jeremy Grantham (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the legendary investor renowned for his ability to spot bubbles comes a brilliant account of a storied career as well as a vivid history of the stock market over the last sixty years

Raised in a Yorkshire coal-mining town, Jeremy Grantham once won seven games of Monopoly in a single evening--he figured out the most efficient properties on the board and went all in. So begins the story of an iconoclastic investment career launched into the stratosphere by a few simple ideas: buy cheap, watch for bubbles, and stick to your guns when you know you're right.

Deep curiosity about the history of markets kept Grantham one step ahead. He created one of the first index funds in the 1970s, pioneered quantitative investment in the 1980s, and embraced emerging markets before other firms saw their potential. Grantham became famous when he accurately predicted and sidestepped a series of bubbles, but he learned by painful experience why so few others would: "It is terrible business to blow the whistle on a major bull market." His firm skyrocketed from $250 million to a peak of $155 billion in assets under management. But as his wealth grew, so did his concerns about the deficiencies of capitalism and the unfolding climate crisis. He decided--at the top of his game--to donate nearly all his wealth to environmental protection.

With wit that's as cutting against himself as his critics, Grantham reveals how hunting for bargains requires understanding the inefficiencies of the market and the human behavior that drives it. When resisting the bull market of the late 1990s, Grantham lost clients in droves before his bearish call was vindicated. "The best ideas eventually come out on top," he says, "but sadly there's no guarantee you won't go out of business waiting." That you might lose your job for being right is at the root of the short-term thinking that dominates the investment world. Such thinking also has disastrous consequences for the planet and mankind's long-term future. Ultimately, Grantham offers a deeply human, often heretical, and quietly profound lens on investing today.

Review Quotes

Praise for Jeremy Grantham:

"Grantham's quarterly letters, which command a cult following of readers within and beyond the financial industry, inspire even the most short-term profit-minded investors to do a little fate-of-the-world-scale thinking."--Carlo Rotella, New York Times Magazine

"[Grantham] occupies a legendary place in the world of finance for predicting all the major stock market bubbles of recent decades (and doing very well in the process)."--Leo Hickman, The Guardian

"The legendary investor [Jeremy Grantham], co-founder of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO), is famous for predicting doom. And he's famous for being right, with a remarkable record of spotting investment bubbles before they pop."--Ben Steverman, Bloomberg Businessweek

"More than the head of asset-management giant GMO, this man should be recognized as the world's greatest environmentalist."-- Gus Lubin, Business Insider

Praise for Edward Chancellor:

"[Edward Chancellor is] one of the great financial writers of our era."--Financial Analysts Journal, on Capital Account

"Edward Chancellor has produced not just a brilliant explainer of the value of money and time but a hugely engaging history of the greatest problem confronting markets today. The Price of Time is a must read -- a copy should be on the desk of everyone who has anything to do with financial markets or wondered why things work as they do."--Merryn Somerset Webb, Editor-in-Chief, MoneyWeek, on The Price of Time

"Entertaining, useful, admirable . . . Chancellor seems to have read everything." --New York Times Book Review, on Devil Take the Hindmost

About the Author

Jeremy Grantham is widely regarded both as one of the world's greatest investors and a top environmental philanthropist. He is cofounder and long-term investment strategist of GMO, a Boston-based investment management firm with offices around the world, and founder of the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the Carnegie Medal for Philanthropy in 2017 as well as the Harvard Business School's 2025 Alumni Achievement Award. He lives in Boston.

Edward Chancellor is an award-winning financial journalist and for several years worked with Jeremy Grantham at GMO. He is the author of The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, winner of the 2023 Hayek Book Prize, and Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He lives in Somerset.