Institutional Investor Hall of Famer Richard Bernstein is making a bearish contrarian call on earnings.

Despite Wall Street's strong appetite for stocks right now, Bernstein believes there's a high probability corporate earnings will come in negative next year.

"The one thing that people are kind of missing out [on] here is that earnings in the United States are still decelerating," the CEO of Richard Bernstein Advisors told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Wednesday. "By our work, we would argue that the first half of 2020 you could actually see a full-blown profits recession."

Bernstein's prediction doesn't reflect analyst consensus. The Street is widely expecting profits to grow by as much as 7.2% through the second quarter of 2020.

"Our research shows that analysts have never forecasted a proper recession," he said. "They're very good at doing it once it occurs, but they've never actually forecasted one ahead of time."