The S&P 500 could crash nearly 50% as a brutal recession takes hold, veteran technical analyst warns

• Stocks could crash nearly 50% as a severe recession sets in, Milton Berg has warned.
• The veteran technical analyst flagged investor complacency and more banking woes as risk factors.
• Berg expects the S&P 500 to plunge below its level in October and approach its pandemic lows.

The S&P 500 could crash nearly 50% as the US economy sinks into a severe recession, a veteran technical analyst has warned.

"There's something very, very wrong with this market," Milton Berg said on the latest episode of the "Forward Guidance" podcast. Berg, who runs his own advisory firm, and has previously worked as a commodities analyst and trader, fund manager, and advisor to elite investors like George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, laid out a raft of reasons why he's deeply worried about the stock market's outlook.

For one, Wall Street has grown too complacent about the risk of a recession, he said.

"The reality is the economy has been weak and might get weaker," he said. "It's more likely now we'll get a recession than any time in the last two years."

Most investors have moved on from Silicon Valley Bank's collapse this spring. Berg cautioned that other banks, pension funds, endowments, and similar institutions have likely suffered deep cuts to the value of their fixed-income portfolios, as interest rates have surged over the last 18 months or so.

"SVB is just a canary in the coal mine, tip of the iceberg," he said.

Berg also pointed to a raft of technical indicators showing a lack of momentum that's more consistent with a bear-market rally than a bull market. Moreover, he warned a rare decline in the money supply earlier this year could be a "killer for stocks."

"The market has very, very weak legs that it's standing on," he said. "This is what you sort of see at market tops, where the liquidity that supposedly drives up all markets ... only a handful of stocks are moving up."

The chart expert likened the stock market to a "drunkard trying to walk on a tightrope" where "any little shift of wind could knock you over."

Berg said he anticipated that a brutal recession, and potentially a banking crisis, could tank the S&P 500 by more than 20% to below its October low — and could even pull it down by 45% or more to its pandemic low of below 2,500 points.