Tom, I don't blame the decline on SI as I see the same decline in other online communities. And not just the stockmarket discussions either, online discussion groups of all types seem to be in decline. Even the political discussions seem to have been abandoned except for a few extremists on both sides.
Anyway, I will venture out with another of my predictions for some market sectors:
Internet: the deflation of the bubble will continue and damage will spread to financial companies. EBAY and AMZN have more pain to suffer. There will be Internet success stories, but these will be "real" companies that use the Internet to enhance "real" business models. Total Internet "browsing" and searching will continue to decline. Email will grow.
Wireless: we are near saturation on cell phones. Other wireless devices will grow but slowly. The Internet will not be a big factor in wireless. There will be mergers in the industry leaving only a few large players.
Software: decline to continue. The success stories will be software companies that provide single purpose "solutions" rather than huge "enterprise" crap that never works. Smaller companies will fill niches as the enterprise stuff fades out. Of course IBM will do OK, as will EDS.
Hardware: Dell will dominate a shrinking PC market.
Energy: Deregulation will play out its last gasp with a huge failure in Texas. The "new" energy companies will continue their crash, "real" utilities will make a come back. Oil and natural gas prices will skyrocket again, buy futures. Coal will make a comeback, but no new nuclear plants will be started in the USA next year. Natural gas shortages are probable over the next few years.
Manufacturing: will begin to recover in 2002.
Travel & Leisure: will recover in 2002.
Construction: will boom in 2002 as the Fed tries to awaken the economy. Rising energy prices and environmental awareness will create opportunities for new products. The price of wood products will skyrocket, buy lumber futures.
Health Care: No solution in sight to health insurance problems. Prices will increase and service will get worse. At some point this will become a huge crisis and could result in a certain lady Senator becoming President in 2004 or 2008. Some good biotech investments will happen.
Immigration: Hispanics will increasingly dominate manufacturing, construction, food service, and health service entry level jobs. A long term trend. Employers love it because these folks usually opt out of costly 401k and health insurance plans.
Global warming: It is very real and is certainly caused by manmade effects that were strong enough to reverse a natural cooling trend. At some point there will be some sudden weather events that will drive the message home and create a crisis. Will that be next year, 10 years, or 20 years from now? Sorry, but my crystal ball is not good enough to predict the timing or the event, just the direction. |
