About Michael Markowski

Michael Markowski entered the capital markets in 1977, joining Merrill Lynch directly after graduating from college. A discovery made during his Merrill training program set the direction of his career: rather than forecasting from consensus, he would research extreme events after they occurred, isolate their cause, and build a rule or algorithm that could flag the next one in advance.

Over his first fifteen years he worked as a stockbroker, portfolio manager, venture capitalist, investment banker and analyst, including underwriting initial public offerings. He voluntarily left the brokerage industry in 1991. Since 1996 he has worked in the financial-information industry, developing research products used by investors to raise performance and lower risk.

His research on Enron's December 2001 collapse produced the EPS Syndrome, a cash-flow-from-operations (CFFO) algorithm that identifies seemingly healthy large-cap companies headed for bankruptcy. Inc. magazine profiled the method in “High Concept: How to Spot an Enron” (December 2002), and Forbes covered its track record in “Markowski Goes With the Flow” (July 2003). The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes and SmartMoney.com have each acknowledged his expertise in cash-flow statement analysis; SmartMoney asked whether he was “the 21st century's reincarnation of Benjamin Graham.”

In September 2007, applying the same algorithm to the brokerage industry's negative cash flow from sub-prime mortgage revenue, he published wholesale sell recommendations on Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in Equities Magazine. All five collapsed, were rescued or were forced to convert within twelve months.

Markowski's later research extended from individual companies to the market as a whole. His study of the Dow Jones and S&P 500 from 1871 onward produced crash and crash-bottom indicators that he used to call the Brexit sell-off (June 2016), the Q4 2018 correction (stated on Fox Business in September 2018), and the March 2020 crash and its March 23 bottom. He has also researched the seed-round histories of Airbnb, Uber and other digital disruptors to identify the common traits of companies that multiply a thousandfold, and the Perpetual Financing Strategy those companies used to fund pre-IPO growth.