Posted on 07/21/2002 10:00:45 AM PDT by StockAyatollah
Goldman strategist sees rising stocks By August Cole, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 11:03 AM ET July 21, 2002
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Goldman Sachs' top U.S. market strategist, a renowned bull, said Sunday that U.S. stocks are going to get back on their feet and head higher.
Abby Joseph Cohen said on CBS's "Face The Nation" that stock prices are set to go "higher, not lower." The comments were made on the heels of a week that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU: news, chart, profile) give up 7.6 percent and the Nasdaq Composite ($COMPQ: news, chart, profile) fall by 3.9 percent. See full story.
She also remarked that the tell-all period that has roiled Corporate America is nearing its end. "We're close" to the end of the corporate revelations, Cohen said.
To that end, she predicted, the upcoming Aug. 14 deadline for top company executives to verify their firms' books will be a positive for the markets.
Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics and a guest on the Sunday-morning news program, commented that U.S. economic fundamentals and prospects are "the best in the world."
In April, Goldman's Cohen had said her 2002 target for the Dow ($INDU: news, chart, profile) was 11,300 and for the S&P 500 ($SPX: news, chart, profile) it was 1,300.
As of Friday, the Dow closed at 8,019. The Nasdaq closed at 1,219. The S&P 500 ended the day at 848.
It's good to keep the older numbers for fear-mongering purposes. Gold websites have a tendancy to thrive on fear.
That's a valid point, but I've seen similar figures quoted elsewhere. That was just one source that I happened to stumble across today that I had at my finger tips. I agree that these numbers can be distorted depending on your agenda. That's why I'd be interested in seeing what lay behind the 18, because if it is 18, it would change my view on the market a fair bit (though I still would not be bullish).
The change in S&P from March is only half the equation. If earnings also fell, then the S&P P/E might not necessarily delcine.
For the same reason that an idiot like Michael Metz, chief strategist at Oppenheimer, still has his job. He began predicting a bear market in 1994 just as the markets began to recover and tried to talk the market down for SIX YEARS.
Anyone who listened to him missed the biggest bull market in history.
Anyone who mentions gold is obviously a lunatic. In fact, the other day I was called a liberal and a terrorist. I'm not sure which is worse. I've seen you on several of these threads making sarcastic remarks. If you don't agree, why don't you back it up with rational argument instead of wisecracks? If you can make a bullish case, I'd like to hear it. I mean that sincerely. At the end of the day it doesn't matter much who was the most witty when real money is involved.
I've never met anyone yet that could foretell the future (well, Churchill seemed pretty good at some things, but I never met him).
Bulls or bears, you just have to take with a grain of salt anyone who is telling you what will happen tomorrow, next week, next month, next year...
I'm not sure what you are referring to. Maybe the P/E assumption? I have no emotional attachment to "my" theory. If I have a wrong P/E assumption, I want to know about it ASAP because I have hard-earned cash at stake, just like everybody else does.
I agree completely, and I say that as a gold bug (for the moment). It seems to me that the term 'buy and hold' has come to mean, in popular parlance, investing in something and then forgetting about it. Any investment requires periodic monitoring, even if you hold it for the long term. Gold has been a terrible investment for 20 years, which is one reason I like it. I think it will do well as a safe haven investment over the next few years as we navigate through some very rough waters.
I agree! I didn't listen to him and stayed in the market until January 2000 (sweating bullets for the last 6 months).
But, the market (now in a bear) has been trotting out these bulls at least once a week to get us to stay in (or get back in) the market.
Just as the markets trotted out Metz, and some doofus who was a permanent bear (meaning all he did was short stocks). Cohen bases her prognosis on the same kind of analyses some of our fellow FReepers have been doing on this very thread. She could just as well be pushing bonds, since Goldman sells those as well.
But, then, bonds suck right now, too, don't they, as the slightest uptick on interest rates will drive them down too.
People who jump out of the market right now, and buy bonds will have the worst of all worlds: lose 20-25% on stocks, then lose 15% on bonds when the market rebounds.
You're shorting too, I see.
Well, I'm one of those who think we're near the bottom, but not quite there yet.
But the DOW's not going to 5,000, as some of you think.
I'm not shorting anything, but I'll notify you when we hit 7,000, 6,000, and 5,000...
You can notify me on the upside...
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