Is Peter Schiff's Recession Thesis Coming True?

Back in November, Peter Schiff, CEO and Chief Global Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital, appeared on Benzinga's PreMarket Prep to discuss his bearish thesis on the stock market and the U.S. economy. Less than two months later, elements of Schiff's thesis appear to be playing out just as he predicted they would.

“If the Fed raises interest rates, this bubble is going to be cracked, and we are going to have a worse financial crisis than in 2008,” Schiff told Benzinga in November.

Related Link: Peter Schiff: The Economy Is Doomed

Since that interview, the Federal Reserve issued its first interest rate hike, and the S&P 500 has started off 2016 down 8.2 percent in less than two weeks.

“Retailers have overestimated the ability of their customers to buy their products,” Schiff predicted in November.

Retail sales declined by 0.1 percent in December, closing out the weakest year for sales growth since the end of the last recession.

However, if Schiff is correct, things could get a lot worse from here.

Twitter Inc TWTR, GoPro Inc GPRO, Mobileye NV MBLY and Sarepta Therapeutics SRPT are among the big-name stocks that have been hit hardest so far in 2016.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.