This may interest some people in terms of perception:
Why I participate in the great stock-market guessing game is beyond me. I know it is a futile undertaking, but that didn't stop me from predicting last August that the S&P 500 would see a marked breakout from its narrow summer trading range.
I wrote, 'a flat finish to this tumultuous year doesn't feel right. There is too much uncertainty. Too many catalysts that could drive big changes in the stock market.'
My logic was impeccable back when the S&P traded at 1281. And so was my prediction-impeccably wrong. A level of 1450 on the S&P 500? It would have been funny had I not lost so much money. The index actually closed at 903. A summer later, the U.S. market is again stuck in a narrow range. And, again I see a bull market on the horizon. My call is for the S&P 500 to
finish somewhere between 1150 and 1200 at year end, a 30% bump from Tuesday's close.
Will it get there? I actually don't see the economy picking up until next year. But the market works in mysterious ways, as investors favor the perception of tomorrow over the reality of today. So what catalysts in the coming months could radically change investor perception? Here are three big ones:
Catalyst No. 1: U.S. Companies Keep Delivering Earnings
Give America's CEOs some credit. Most of them have figured out that underpromising and overdelivering on profits is a good way to keep their jobs. Just look at recent strong earnings from Johnson & Johnson, Yum Brands, CSX and Goldman Sachs. Intel crushed consensus analyst expectations by 10% on the top line and by more than 100% on earnings per share.
This doesn't mean business is great. But it does mean American CEOs know how to protect profits in this lousy economy: cut inventories, slash costs and fire workers. It also means share prices are more likely to rise than fall as analysts re-jigger their earnings and price targets upward. This morning more than a dozen Wall Street analysts upped their price target on
Intel. Its shares are up 7%. And the market is up more than 2%.
Catalyst No. 2: The 'Animal Spirits' Are Unleashed Again on Wall Street
There is nothing like confidence, envy and greed-the 'animal spirits' - to get Wall Street investors and banks back into risk-taking.
It is a good bet that plenty of other banks are already boosting their risk-taking. Just look at J.P. Morgan's 'renewed swagger' as outlined in the WSJ today. With the TARP repaid, CEO Jamie Dimon seems mighty hungry to make his bank lots of money.
Junk-bond issuance surged to $51 billion in the second quarter after practically halting last September.
This aggressiveness is a good thing. It is good for an economy that needs capital. And it is good for a stock market that is stoked by risk capital. With banks back seeking higher returns, how long will it be before investors follow suit? A yield of less than 1% on a two-year Treasury? Is
that a good risk-return trade-off as the Federal Reserve pumps hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy?
Catalyst No. 3: President Obama Moves to the Political Center
What will President Obama do when October arrives with 10% unemployment, a soaring, $2 trillion budget deficit and dozens of unhappy Democratic Congressmen? Will he actually double down on his tax-the-rich, anti-business policies?
It seems unlikely. After all, politicians want to get re-elected. And without the votes of conservative Democratic senators, the president's entire agenda is doomed. So, the president will have no choice but to move to the center. And that switch from Obama as Jimmy Carter to Obama as Bill Clinton will be good for the U.S. economy, good for U.S. companies and good for the U.S. stock market.
Just think of the surge in energy and utility stocks if 'cap-and-trade' legislation is indefinitely postponed. Or consider the boost health-care and pharmaceutical stocks would get from taking the 'public health' option out of health-care reform. After all, why should a share of Merck or Eli Lilly carry a 6% dividend yield when the 10-year Treasury is under 3.5%?
So, 1200 for the S&P 500? The catalysts are there.
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