Birinyi Sees Bull Market Continuing in 2012
By Whitney Kisling - Jan 10, 2012
Laszlo Birinyi, whose prediction the bull market would weather a five-month retreat came true in October when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rallied 11 percent, says stocks will keep climbing in 2012.
Equities will gain at least 8 percent as improving corporate profits force bears to capitulate, according to Birinyi, who manages $400 million in Westport, Connecticut. Forecasts for declines from economists Gary Shilling and Nouriel Roubini were repudiated in 2011 as the benchmark gauge for American equities erased a 13 percent drop.
Birinyi, who advised holding stocks in August as the U.S. government was stripped of its AAA credit rating and strategists cut forecasts faster than any time since the credit crisis, said shares will climb for years to come if history is any guide. Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., predicts equity investors will lose money in 2012 as consumer spending drops.
“Many concerns are opinions, but not necessarily facts,”Birinyi, president of Birinyi Associates Inc., said in a telephone interview on Jan. 4. “Later in the year, things will get a little bit better and sentiment will change, and we end up at the last leg where we’ve got the last-guy-in-the-pool scenario.”
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