As NBR prepares to ring in the New Year with our annual Investment Review & Preview Special, the mood on Wall Street is positive and hopeful. Earnings at the big brokerage firms are up. Wall Street bonuses are big. And, mergers are back. It’s no wonder that my sources on the Street sound so upbeat -- even happy.
Most of the market strategists I’ve been talking to are forecasting another up year in the markets. Some, like Bernie Schaeffer of Schaeffer Investment Research, are over-the-top bullish. He expects the Dow to be up by 16% in 2007. But, even the strategists who are cautious -- like Liz Ann Sonders at Charles Schwab -- aren’t really predicting a bad year, just a less exuberant one.
Yes, they have their worries -- high oil prices, the weak dollar, the housing recession, the slowing economy, blah blah blah. But, they still think the stock market will post new highs in the New Year. After all, they say, there’s so much cash out there waiting to go into stocks -- corporate liquidity, private equity money, merger and acquisition money.
All this makes me wonder how individual investors -- people like you and me -- feel about the outlook for stocks? Is the mood equally upbeat? The answer from one strategist I talked to last week surprised me. He says investors are “not believers” in this market. The Bust of 2000, he tells me, is still fresh in people’s minds. In fact, he says most investors are “scared” about investing their savings in stocks. Is that really true? I’d like to hear from you. How do you feel about the outlook for stocks in 2007? Do you feel it’s a good place to put your money? If not, what's a better investment option?
Comments
Dear Susie,
Kudos for maintaining the high standards of your telecasts on NBR. You continue to develop personally and as the anchor to a fine team of young professionals. You are a hidden treasure in financial telecasting deserving of a far wider audience. It is an intellectual joy to view your telecasts as well as a mature source of credible information that helps an average investor maintain a balanced portfolio. Thank you.
With great admiration and respect,
Jim Veras
Roger - Thanks for your kind words. I'll make sure Susie revisits this entry to read them. However, she will not be able to comment on the stocks/funds you mention. NBR has an editorial policy preventing members of its staff -- including anchors and correspondents -- from offering recommendations or comments or any other type of opinion about investments.
As an avid NBR viewer, I'm sure you've noticed that we ask analysts, financial strategists, and the like to offer these sort of comments -- but never our journalists. Still, I recommend you keep watching, because you never know when one of these outside analysts might mention one of the stocks/funds you are interested in.
SUSIE AND PAUL,
You are best team ever. I enjoy your program. I record it to DVR everyday. I have been investing since 1996 mainly in mutual funds. I am a long term investor. Recently I started a new account with UBS. HFOCX, NMCYX, TIBCX was there recommendations. These are very aggressive funds. Susie, can you comment on these for me.
Thank you for your professionalism.
Actually you missed other great post.
2006 Wall Street Bonus Survey at
www.wsren.org/career
I think the stocks are headed for a moderate bull run for 2007.
I am also a Susie Gharib fan and try never to miss the Nightly Business Report.
Dear Susie ; Love to watch the show.. Have taken some advice and done well , also done bad on some.. Have to get up at 5:00 AM to watch at 5:30.. Wish ETV in S.C. would carry it at night..Just a word of thanks!!
Dear Susie,
The Daily Business Report is part of our daily life while enjoying our retirement in Florida. We have been privileged to know you since the 1970's and followed your career since our residence for 30 years in Scarsdale, N.Y. You have developed into the consumate professional in your field and your interviews with leading CEO's are outstanding. The manner in which they respond to you by first name (thank YOU Susie)says it all and that is why they are so responsive to your challenging questions. Two thoughts - 1. More of a global approach by interviews with visiting foreign nations multinational company CEO's, and 2. what's keeping the bigger networks of engaging your extraordinary talents?
Betty and Jim Veras
Susie,
I'd say I'm kinda upbeat. I like the trend, but the fact that the market indeces have been above the long term average (of what, +10%/yr. now ?), does tend to make me a little nervous. The market, in my 20 yr. investing history, does seem to have a way of returning to the long term average after periods of deviance.
Am I a believer in the market ? Yes, because as a small investor with over 99% of my investments in retirement accounts, I have to be. Am I a little scared that what happened from March of 2000 to March of 2003 could happen again, and have thought in the back of my mind if I see a pullback within a month of 9%, I'm getting out and waiting it out. I'm too close to retirement to take that kind of loss again, but not so close that I have time to hope the market would recover again. Short-term, over 1 year is one thing, but I'm not just investing for a year. I probably got at least another 20 years until I can retire, and probably more like 26. So I'm concerned about what will happen to the market when baby boomers start selling their stocks and funds for retirement.
Will there be enough buyers to keep the market from going down, or to keep it going up ? Phil Town, (Rule #1 author) says this in his book. And he says the reason that stocks started going up so much since the 80's was the inflow of money from retirement accounts, and that the demand for stocks was higher than the supply, and that is basically why we saw that great increase (This makes sense to me, but it seems so simple. Am I missing something here ?)
Will the dwindling production of oil (aka Peak Oil), and the rising demand (if conservation and efficiency efforts aren't seriously employed) cause huge price increases and upheavals in the economy of such a magnitude over a short period of time that we wouldn't be able to deal with it ? Will a North Korea with a deliverable nuke cause disruption to trade, and our economy (and the market) ? Will a nuclear Iran (and please do not give them any credibility as to their expressed intentions (only for peaceful power production), because they've been caught cheating by the IAEA for years!), cause trouble that will send the market falling ? Will terrorists be able to unleash attacks that will hurt our economy (and stock market), either directly, or by actions we take afterwards ? Will a rising China begin to challenge us internationally, both on economic and military fronts ? Will something like avian influenza mutate, and create a 1918 like pandemic ? Will our growing debt and trade deficit become too much to manage, such that servicing that debt, and continuing to see the loss of manufacturing jobs will cause other economies to become more attractive to invest in ?
I hope not to all of these, but I don't think they are totally out of the question. But Susie, you report this everyday. What do you think, and why? Thank you for your interesting reporting and informative shows !
Susie Gharib Is by far the queen of financial broadcasting, I wouldn't miss her hightly business program, It is the one and only business report worth seeing,
Thank you Susie
I just would like for you and Paul Kangas, that my husband and I love to watch you every night.You both do a fabulous job at reporting the buisness news, please don't change the little bits of humor and wit that you incorporate in the show.
susie I hope the the stocks for caterpillar do good this year.And I hope finding a job this year will be easier to find for my self and other middle class americans,and I hope obma wins for president in 2008 he has my vote.
Hi,
I'm hoping stocks will be good (not spectacular) for the next two to three years, until the boomers start retiring en masse. The worries you describe could hurt Wall St. if they all got catastrophically worse. The weak dollar has the potential to do the most harm. The metals market is far too speculative for me. Overseas markets look to be the best bet for next year.
May everyone have a prosperous New Year!