Ned GoodmanYvonne Berg
Veteran fund manager Ned Goodman is upbeat on the North American stock market in the near term, saying it is entering into a more bullish phase.
"I look for an upside on the S&P 500 something around 1,150 or 1,200 during 2010-2011," Mr. Goodman said in speech Monday to a gathering of financial analysts. "I foresee that the lows of March 6th of this year should not be breached on the downside."
But Mr. Goodman, who told the same audience in the spring of 2008 that he sees the market continuing in a "flat-line" period similar to 1968 to 1982, warned again that that trend is not going away.
During the last range-bound market, "I think there was six times where the markets went down 30 or 40 [per cent]and then up 40 or 50 per cent," the chairman of DundeeWealth Inc. said later in an interview. "We are in a time of uncertainty."
While he expects the U.S market to rally, "it is probably going to come all the way back down again - maybe as low as 600 - and then it will go back up again. And it will probably do that four or five times over the next decade," he said. "The time to own index funds is over."
Mr. Goodman, who is also chief executive officer of Dundee Corp. , expects a slow global economic recovery, and is "fully satisfied that the greatest dangers that we were looking at one year ago [from the financial crisis]are effectively put to bed."
But he also believes that inflation is still a big threat because of the U.S. government's stimulus programs and the printing of money to get out of the financial crisis.
"We are looking forward to economic recovery and future growth," Mr. Goodman said. "Following recovery, I expect a new bull market for equities can emerge.
"It will emerge combined with inflation and falling bond prices. We expect that those emerging markets that were in recession - not very many of them - will return to growth in 2010, and likely so will the United States. Europe has bigger troubles and will need more time."
By 2011, with the help of inflation and a lower U.S. dollar, resource commodities, agricultural commodities and companies that produce them "will be the place to have been invested along with certain equities that have pricing power to overcome certain inflationary forces," he suggested.
With expectations of rising inflation, Mr. Goodman is bullish on gold.
"The more debt that the United States piles on the dollar, and the more toxic assets that the U.S. Federal Reserve takes in will go towards the continuing debasement of the U.S. dollar," he predicted.
"The bull market for gold has been running for 10 years, and has more to go.
When George W. Bush became U.S. president at the end of the century, gold was $265 (U.S.) an ounce, but the price has since surged to about $1,050, he said.
"Since 1999, the price of gold has gone through disbelief, acceptance and now optimism," Mr. Goodman added. "We are in the optimistic period. The next stage will be euphoria, leading to the mother of all bubbles."