MarketWatch columnist Howard Gold surveyed several big-time stock market gurus who were bullish on stocks last year, and they remain that way this year, "if a bit less enthusiastically, because the bull market is a year older."
The list includes Laszlo Birinyi, president of Birinyi Associates; Jeremy Siegel, finance professor at University of Pennsylvania, and Sam Stovall, managing director of U.S. equity strategy for S&P Capital IQ.
Birinyi believes the S&P 500 index will register "a modest gain of just under 3 percent in the first quarter to 2,120, which would be the top of the current trading range," according to a commentary he wrote last week. The index closed at 2,062 Thursday.
Siegel told CNBC that stocks will keep rising this year thanks to low interest rates. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average "will have more difficulty touching 20,000 in 2015 than hitting 18,000 this year," because stocks are closer to their fair-market value. The Dow closed at 17,907 Thursday.
Stovall predicts the S&P 500 will reach 2,250 this year. "Since 1945, the S&P 500 gained an average 15 percent during the third year of the presidential cycle," he explained.
In addition, Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management predicts "a good year on Main Street but a more challenging environment for Wall Street," as the Fed raises short-term interest rates. "While the stock market may end the year a bit higher around 2,150, it may also experience a significant correction of 10 percent to 15 percent sometime during the year," he wrote this week.
CNBC commentator Ron Insana shares their positive sentiment. "I remain convinced that U.S. stocks are the place to be and that Wall Street is enjoying a secular, or long-term, bull market, based on a variety of positive influences," he writes in a commentary for CNBC.
And what are those influences? How about
- Historically low interest rates
- Inexpensive energy
- A manufacturing renaissance
- Technological innovation
- Accelerating growth
- Decelerating deficits
- A confident consumer
"I believe the U.S. will weather the storm, and suffer, at worst, a correction. But that belief is also predicated on the Federal Reserve NOT raising rates in 2015, by Washington developing a policy response to OPEC's assault on U.S. fracking fields, . . . and by the U.S. consumer using a lower cost of living to spend more in the months ahead," he explains.
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