Trader who predicted Black Monday plans to short U.S. stocks throughout 2027

Paul Tudor Jones, founder of hedge fund Tudor Investment Corporation and known for predicting the 1987 crash, when the Dow Jones plunged more than 20% in a single day, plans to maintain a short position in U.S. stocks throughout 2027. The billionaire said this in an interview with CNBC. Jones also said he is bullish on oil and believes the conflict with Iran could push prices another $20-25 per barrel higher.

“I’ll be short the whole year. There just – there’s little value,” Jones said in the CNBC interview. He expects 2027 to be “really, really challenging” for the stock market because of an increase in equity supply.

“You’ve probably got the most negative flow picture for the U.S. stock market that we’ve had, say, since 2002,” Jones said. For most of the four-year bull market, he said, stocks have been supported by buybacks and mergers and acquisitions, which reduced equity supply. That trend is now reversing.

Jones pointed to major upcoming offerings in the AI sector from Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as SpaceX’s IPO in June. He also expects more secondary offerings from companies raising money to build out AI infrastructure. He compared the current environment to 1998-2002: “You had all this issuance, all these IPOs in ’98 and ’99, and really 2000, 2001, 2002. Those were the easiest years to be short because you kept having these unlocks that just kept adding supply to the market.”

Separately, Jones said he is long oil and believes prices could rise another $20-25 per barrel. He thinks it is now too late to resolve the conflict with Iran before the U.S. midterm elections. “If something to ameliorate the situation was going to happen,” Jones said, it would already have happened. However, he believes Trump will try to make peace after the elections. “It’s not sustainable, I don’t think, in the long run,” Jones said of the war in the Middle East. 

On Tuesday morning, when Jones shared his forecasts with CNBC, WTI crude futures were trading at around $92.50 per barrel. If prices rise by the upper end of his forecast, U.S. crude would surpass its highest closing price of 2026, just under $113 per barrel, CNBC noted. Jones believes the stock market would “absolutely totally hate” such a spike in oil.

However, stocks weathered higher oil prices relatively well earlier this year, CNBC points out. After the U.S.-Iran war began on February 28, the S&P 500 was down only slightly more than 7% at its late-March trough, a smaller decline than analysts had expected given the surge in oil. As of Tuesday, the S&P 500 had gained almost 14% year to date.

Jones is known for predicting the 1987 market crash, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 20% in a single day. In October 2025, he compared market conditions to late 1999 and advised investors to sell stocks in time, fingering the risks of circular deals used to finance AI infrastructure. In April this year, he warned of a potential 30-35% market cliff, highlighting that U.S. stocks had a market capitalization exceeding 250% of GDP, as well as the risk of insider selling after lockup periods expire following major IPOs, including SpaceX’s. He also drew a parallel with the dot-com crash, when the Nasdaq Composite had fallen 39% in 2000 following a wave of IPOs started a year before.

In September, Jones warned about the risks posed by AI development, comparing it to a “Category 6 hurricane,” and urged the U.S. and China to jointly develop rules to control the technology.