MarketWatch - 23/10/2013 (11h42min - horário de Brasília) 2014 ‘Year of the Boom!’ Bet on the bulls now Commentary: 5 engines driving a new Roaring Twenties stock market By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, 2014 is coming, fast, now dubbed the “Year of the Boom.” Bulls roaring. Hot race to New Years 2013. Then beyond into a booming, bullish 2014 rally. Yes, the Great Gatsby’s spirit is back in America. Top billing. Let the good times roll. Come join the party. Great shot of Leonardo DiCaprio as the Great Gatsby over on Business Insider. Dapper in a classy tuxedo, handing you a glass of Dom Perignon bubbles. His infectious, irresistible smile. You can even hear Judy Garland singing: “Forget all your troubles. C’mon get happy. Shout hallelujah. Chase all your cares away. Get ready.” Yes, ready for the 2014 boom. The markets are living in a timeless Roaring Twenties exuberance. There are five huge reasons it’ll accelerate past a New Years rally into 2014. Yes, you can make some real money. This year. And next. Don’t miss it. Listen to the revelers toasting all over the ballroom. Confetti flying. Strobe lights flashing. Jazz band tapping a snappy Charleston. Madcap dancing. Get ready, jump into the festivities, get on this new bandwagon. Even old grumpy Dr. Doom, celeb economist Nouriel Roubini, recently began humming a happy tune for investors, all over national television: “A global recovery is going to occur, so you might want to be marginally overweight in equities.” Marginally? From Dr. Doom that’s damn bullish. Sure got my feet tapping, reminding me of my March 2009 column where I one-upped the Great Roubini in “6 reasons I’m calling a bottom and a new bull.” Great call, last four years the market’s more than doubled. Time again. Get on the floor. Back in the game. Dance the night away. Bets on the tables. Please don’t miss it, ride this rally past New Years into 2014 Yes, folks, 2014 really is the “Year of the Boom.” That’s the hot, breathless, engraved- invitation-to-the-party thrust of Matthew Boesler’s Business Insider column, “Here comes the final melt-up for the one percenters,” a fascinating summary of 2014 market predictions made by the great Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist over at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research. Yes, 2014 is his big “Year of the Boom.” The Super Rich are staying in the game, piling on the chips, betting big on one roaring hurrah, the final race to the finish line for America’s wealthiest. One last all-in bet by Forbes 400 billionaires, day traders and all the hotshot high-frequency traders gambling in the too-big-to-fail banks and out in the shadowy $650 trillion global derivatives casino. So why the happy days music from the big players? Why a final melt-up for the one percenters. Not tapering, the new Fed chairwoman won’t turn off the cheap money machine. In fact, Merrill Lynch’s Hartnett says “Wall Street’s boom will likely continue until Main Street’s recovery becomes visible and tightening starts.” Could be a while, given all the political infighting. Till then, investors, politicians and all Americans are smoking the same old irrational exuberance weed that got us in trouble times before. As Hartnett put it: “We believe the opiate of investors for the moment remains central bank liquidity. The degree of stimulus since 2007 has been unprecedented: $13 trillion of FX reserve accumulation and financial asset purchases by central banks and 560 central bank rate cuts. And the ‘bulls’ appear to remain driven by ‘liquidity’ ... ‘Bernanke-care’ may have truly cured all known investor concerns” for 2014. Surprise 2014 for investors, growth driving a new market rally? So Hartnett’s definitely in the Roaring Twenties groove, singing, dancing and answering his own biggest economic question: “Where’s the growth? ... We think stronger growth, perhaps much stronger U.S. growth, will be the investor surprise in the next 12 month ... with a successful asset price reflation” generated by five powerful engines driving our recovery ... “significant monetary stimulus ... a booming housing market ... an inexpensive dollar ... record corporate cash balances ... and increasing energy independence.” Get it? Surprising growth for the markets. And he’s a true believer: “If the U.S. economy does not significantly accelerate in coming quarters, we think it is difficult to say when it ever will.” Yes, it will grow. That’s why 2014 is the “Year of the Boom,” time for rallies and recovery, a Roaring Twenties sequel, coming well before a crashing market. The sense you get from tracking all this happy talk about 2014 as the “Year of the Boom” and a “Final Melt-Up for the One Percenters” is that our pundits aren’t really calling this the final days before a crash, like the fall of 1929 when Yale economist Irving Fisher proclaimed “the nation is marching along a permanently high plateau of prosperity.” In fact, pundits may not even see a bear market separating the last bull and the next. A new normal? Read the new Wall Street Journal report, “Top bear’s bullish tilt has followers growling.” After many years as a permabear, former Merrill Lynch chief economist David Rosenberg surrendered, a turncoat. Clients weren’t happy. Roubini’s likely getting similar criticism. Still, they’re bowing to the facts. They see happy days for 2014. 6 reasons to jump back in, dance to the new Roaring Twenties spirit Back in 2009 when we beat Roubini to the punch, “calling a bottom and a new bull,” the Dow was 6,547. Recently it hit a new record 15,676. More than doubled. If it doubles without a bear pause, guess what ... the Dow could be pushing 24,000 by 2017. So where’s the risk? Here’s an update of the six reasons we gave investors for jumping back in when the Dow was crashing, dropping into 6,547: 1. Stocks make big money sudden, fast, then go to “sleep” Several years ago Journal columnist Jason Zweig reported on some fascinating research: “History shows that the vast majority of the time, the stock market does next to nothing. Then, when no one expects it, the market delivers a giant gain or loss — and promptly lapses back into its usual stupor.” Well, this time some actually expect a 2014 boom. 2. The stock market always turns before the economy bottoms The stock market is a leading indicator. Stocks historically kick into action earlier than the economy recovers, often six months ahead of the economy’s bottom. 3. Forget market timing, you can’t predict big or small moves Markets are notoriously unpredictable. Not by Main Street. Certainly not by Wall Street. In his classic “Stocks for the Long Run,” Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel studied all the big market moves between 1801 and 2001. He found that 75% of the time there was no logical reason for big moves in stocks up or big moves down. 4. Famous media darling pundits inevitably flame out Former Journal science columnist Sharon Begley once wrote a piece in Newsweek, “Why pundits get things wrong.” Her opening: “Pointing out how often pundits’ predictions are not only wrong but egregiously wrong — a 36,000 Dow! euphoric Iraqis welcoming American soldiers with flowers! — is like shooting fish in a barrel, except in this case the fish refuse to die. But no matter how often they miss the mark, pundits just won’t shut up.” 5. Even the most respected expert can make massive errors Over a decade ago a BusinessWeek title said it all: “What do you call an economist with a prediction? Wrong.” A few years later, in “So I was off by a trillion,” BusinessWeek reported how Gregory Boskin, former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, publicly miscalculated future tax payments on withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement accounts. Later, others rechecked his numbers; he had to admit his $12 trillion in savings was bogus. Too often political ideologies trump “objective” economists pronouncements. 6. Paradoxically, Washington’s political drama is good for the stock market In the short run the government shutdown was a $24 billion disaster. But over in the Journal, E.S. Browning sees a stock “silver lining” in a Ned Davis Research “good news” comment: “This is the best environment for stocks right now ... economy kept growing ... don’t have rising interest rates ... don’t have inflationary pressures ... do have earnings growth ... and the turmoil is widely expected to keep the Fed” printing cheap money. Plus, “the most positive indicator,” says the Davis team, “is that unemployment is a high 7.3%, but declining.” And history tells us “when the unemployment rate is above 6% and falling, that is the best situation for the stock market.” And that’s six great reasons 2014 is the “Year of the Boom,” a great time for a Roaring Twenties jazz band party ... and for investing in a bullish, booming stock market. So place your bets. Time to drink a case of your favorite intoxicating bubbly irrational exuberance! You earned it. marketwatch/story/2014-year-of-the-boom-bet-on-the-bulls-now-2013-10-23
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:45:30 +0000
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