è appena uscita la previsione per il 2002 di Ken Fisher, un gestore e anche autore di libri da rispettare per i risultati ottenuti negli ultimi 20 anni nonchè per la previsione dell'anno scorso che era quasi perfetta Il suo metodo per prevedere l'anno è guardare alla previsione media, massima e minimo degli strategisti e il risultato è SEMPRE L'UNICA VARIAZIONE PERCENTUALE CHE NON E' COPERTA DA NESSUNO l'anno scorso nessuno aveva previsto un -20 o -30% e infatti si è scesi del 20% circa purtroppo questo metodo anche quest'anno da un risultato negativo per S&P e Nasdaq ------------------- Kenneth L. Fisher ------------------- Okay, I changed my mind. In my last column (Jan. 7) I said that the market would be up in 2002. It won't be. Get over it. Expect the S&P 500 to lose another 5% this year, plunging until spring followed by a strong rally in the year's final seven months that won't quite make up for the downdraft. The bottom might be around May 1, at about 900. I use a forecasting methodology that I developed some time ago (see my column of Apr. 3, 2000) based on the predictions by market professionals for the coming year--and the fact that they're always wrong, since their expectations are already priced into the market. I get my number by choosing among the holes between the clusters of their forecasts. This approach is both empirically and theoretically novel, and it's nifty. As often happens, I'm surprised by the result. The rally in the fourth quarter of 2001 made American forecasters too sanguine for 2002 to be a positive year. When a bear market really ends, the initial upturn is met with disbelief, not acceptance. That U.S. professionals are so optimistic after years of being wrong says that there is more bloodletting ahead. Much is weird this year. As I've said recently, the U.S. market doesn't like to drop three years in a row. Such a thing has occurred only twice since 1925 (in 1929-32 and 1939-41). But a spate of New Year's stories makes me confident that everyone knows this, thus diminishing its validity. Nor has the market liked to fall both years of a presidential term's first half, which my forecast envisions. The market did that only in 1929-30 and 1973-74. So I'm expecting the market to do rare things. I'm knowingly making a long bet. These last two years were the two worst back-to-back since 1973-74, and 2001 was the worst year since 1974. Usually after such ugliness you should expect good times soon. The good news is that all during 2001's downdraft I was on the right side of the market. I had the luck to have America's best market forecast of any nationally published portfolio strategist in two of the last three years. For 1999 I called for a 20% increase; the S&P came in at 21%. For 2001 I expected a flat performance; the index fell 13% in stock price terms (12% with dividends included). I was closer than anyone else. Most predicted solidly positive returns. The current euphoria of strategists isn't warranted either. Having been too dour all through the 1990s, forecasters in 2000 tilted toward optimism. In 2001 they continued dour until the fourth quarter; then the upturn too easily intoxicated them. As 2001 ended the average forecaster, the guy smack in the middle of the bell curve of professional prognostications, foresaw a market rise of 17% in 2002. That is a nice notch above the market's long-term average history; in the 30 years' worth of data that I've reviewed, it has never taken place. In 2002 there are three holes in the professionals' array of calls, meaning that there are three likely outcomes for the S&P: to rise more than 40%; to fall by more than 20%; or to fall by from 2% to 10%. I'm betting on the latter. A market rise of more than 40% would be weird. That has happened just three times in the first half of a president's term. If the market fell more than 20%, that would also be weird: Such a deterioration this late in the market cycle defies experience. One caveat is that my methodology might be thwarted by the sky-high turnover of professional forecasters in 2001, which happened because so many of them had been so wrong for so long. Strategists who departed include Christine Callies at Merrill Lynch and Greg A. Smith at Prudential Securities. Still, regardless of who is making projections, I believe that pricing is always a function solely of supply and demand; and that supply is rather rigid in the short term and demand can be measured through sentiment. My approach implies that Nasdaq will lose another 12% this year after bottoming in the spring at perhaps 1350, 33% below the present level. Small-cap value stocks should remain the best part of the market. Longtime readers know that I run this column by managing against the Morgan Stanley World Index, which should do worse than the U.S., losing about 9% for the year and falling perhaps 28%, to 725, in the spring. Stay maximally defensive. That was my advice throughout 2001. At the outset, before the professionals' forecasts were in, I recommended three drug stocks: Schering, Akzo Nobel and Novo-Nordisk. Had you invested $10,000 in each of these, you would have lost 2.5% in 2001, factoring in a hypothetical 1% trading cost: $750 on your $30,000 investment. You would have soundly beaten the market: Putting the $30,000 into the S&P would have lost you $3,420. Once I did my own forecast, I advised staying out of equities, going for cash and bonds instead. This would have earned you around 4%. Not bad for a bad year. Edited by - Gzibordi on 1/23/2002 15:48:19