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Hedge fund guru Barton Biggs says he remains bullish on stocks, despite the factors that have spooked some investors in recent days. Biggs tells Bloomberg that the U.S. economy is in a “strong recovery”, and that he thinks the U.S. will grow in the 5% to 5.5% range in the next couple quarters. He also says valuations on stocks remain attractive. Among the areas he’s high on: large, high-quality technology stocks, large, multi-national growth plays, and high-quality drug firms.
While they’ve spent much of the past several month moving in opposite directions from each other, the dollar and the stock market now may well move upward together, according to top hedge fund manager Barton Biggs.
“After a severe economic shock like we just had, the odds are that we’re going to have a pretty good burst of growth in 2010, 2011,” Biggs told Bloomberg. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t have a further rally in the dollar and a further rally in stocks. My guess is that the next move in both could be on the order of 10 percent.”
Biggs says the dollar is undervalued compared to the yen and the euro, and says the idea that the dollar and stocks must move in opposite directions is “a bunch of baloney. … The market just sets investors up for these relationships, and then it reverses on them.”
Hedge fund guru Barton Biggs tells Charlie Rose that he expects the next major move in the market will be to the upside, and says he thinks the U.S. would be wise to add more stimulus into its recovering economy.
Biggs says he’s looking for the market’s next big move to be a 10% to 15% rise. He does see the U.S. having slower growth in coming years, because of the lingering effects of the housing bust. He says European economies in better shape than the U.S., and he’s particularly high on Asian markets, from China to India to smaller developing nations.
Among Biggs’ other key points:
Hedge fund guru Barton Biggs says he thinks stocks are going to continue to go higher, and expects another 10% to 15% gain for the market. Biggs offered that assessment to Bloomberg TV, basing his belief on an analysis of previous secular bear markets and their ensuing recoveries. He also says he’s heartened by the way the global economy is recovering, but adds that he’s skeptical we’ll see new market highs in the near future.
While the stock market rebound has been met with great skepticism, several top strategists — including some not known for their bullishness — are beginning to think that the rally is indeed for real, reports Financial Advisor Magazine’s Evan Simonoff.
“Normally sober, often vinegary sages ranging from Byron Wien to Barton Biggs to Steve Leuthold to Michael Price think that a market which stubbornly refuses to correct its deviant behavior by more than a few percentage points it is trying to tell us something,” writes Simonoff. Leuthold, for example, says the S&P 500 could hit 1,250 by the first quarter of 2010. And, he thinks retailers could have a surprisingly strong Christmas season — something Wien agrees with.
Charles Schwab’s Chief Investment Strategist Liz Ann Sonders, meanwhile, recently said that investors are underestimating the “bounce-back” effect, reports Simonoff. Sonders says exports are starting to rise sharply, to the point where “GDP can rise even without an increase in consumer spending.”
Continue reading ‘Wien, Biggs, Leuthold, Sonders: Don’t Dismiss the Rally’
The big question in the market these days is, of course, whether the current rally is really the start of a new bull run, or if it is another bear market head fake. And two interesting, differing takes on the topic come from top strategists Barton Biggs and John Mauldin.
In a recent CNBC interview, hedge fund star Biggs says the rally could well be for real. As of mid-April, he saw 40 signs that the environment was starting to improve. Global manufacturing is improving, consumer demand is strengthening, new orders are up, and inventories have fallen to new lows, according to Biggs. “The classic economic recovery begins with new orders and output rising, spending stabilizing, and inventories falling,” he says.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, former Fidelity star manager Peter Lynch says that the recent market plunge and financial crisis hasn’t shaken his belief that stocks are the best long-term choice for investors.
“I can’t tell you anything about where the market will be in the next six months or 12 months or two years,” Lynch said. “But at some point in the future, I think you’ll look back and see that we’ve gotten through this … [and that] stocks turned out to be the best bet.”
Three other top Wall Street minds interviewed by the Times — Pequot Capital Management’s Chief Investment Strategist Byron Wien, hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, and economist Henry Kaufman — also were optimistic about stocks for the long run, but, like Lynch, said investors should be “extremely cautious” in the short term.
Continue reading ‘Lynch: Stocks Still Best Choice for Long Term’
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