Many people who believe in the magazine cover contrary indicator used this cover as evidence that there was no housing bubble. Of course, they ignored the Time cover from a week earlier.
The problem with using The Economist as a magazine cover contrary indicator is that The Economist is usually contrarian to begin with. (Their 1998 cover predicting that oil prices would keep falling is a glaring exception.)
During the late 1990s, The Economist correctly and repeatedly warned that stocks were experiencing a bubble. Likewise, during this decade it correctly and repeatedly warned that housing was experiencing a bubble. If anything, The Economist tends to warn too early, while most publications tend to warn too late.
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