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Strategies & Market Trends : MARKET INDEX TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - MITA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (18461)	1/15/2004 12:32:01 AM
From: Rextar98	Respond to of 19219

I agree tippet, short looks good for tomorrow but.... I don't want to be on the wrong side when the squeeze hits, look at the VIX. Could pop out of that decending base at any time. Down? Maybe the first move? I dunno?... but I sleep well at night 200% long. I see alot of low vols right before a break to the upside. I hope we are both in the right side at the right time. g'night! Author: Normxxx Date: January 10, 2004 9:33 AM Subject: Mauldin: 2004 Forecast 2004: The Silver Lining Economy full text by John Mauldin \| January 10, 2004 For the last 10 days, I have been reviewing over 500 pages of forecasts, predictions, and data from a wide variety of sources. Some have been extremely bullish and others make you want to just slit your wrists and get it over with. But even ignoring the extremes, which are almost always universally wrong, never in all my years have I seen such a wide range of opinion and disagreement accompanied by an increased hardening of those opinions. With a few notable exceptions, there are a lot of analysts who seem more sure of their view of the future than they have been in the last few years. I am one of the exceptions, but nevertheless I will plunge into the treacherous waters of writing my annual forecast issue. If I go into as much detail as I usually do on each topic, there is the potential for this e-letter to be much too long. Therefore I will try and take the larger picture, make specific and shorter predictions and save the details and the arguments for later issues. Let's begin by quickly reviewing how we did last year. All in all, not bad. For masochists and those with lots of time, you can go to the archives at 2000wave.com and read the 2003 forecast issue. But in general, given the vagaries of prediction, I would be glad to do as well this year. I clearly laid out the case for a bear market rally, and pointed out the average bear market rally was 24%. I called for lots of bond volatility and went from a long time bond buy and hold bull to a bond trader. Although I think there may be some more upside, the big gains from holding bonds have been made. I predicted in January of 2003 that Greenspan would not raise rates in 2004, and I stand by that prediction this year. At that time, I was all alone in the corner. Now that view has been adopted by 6 of 15 analysts in the recent issue of Barron's. Actually, I wrote that Greenspan had raised rates for the last time in his career in early 2001, but I assumed that he would retire in the summer of 2004. He may yet get the opportunity to raise rates, but not this year, as I will discuss. Each year as I sit down for my forecasts, I try to focus on what the main macro-economic forces are and how they will affect the markets and our investments. In 2001 it was the coming recession; in 2002 it was a weak recovery and the beginning of the Muddle Through Economy; last year it was Surprise and Transition. While this may surprise a few readers, in many respects, this will be my most upbeat prediction for the economy as a whole for the last five years. While there difficult issues we will have to deal with, I think the proper way to view the economy this year is as The Silver Lining Economy. [T]hat is the way I see the economy shaping up for 2004. There are some nice silver linings that contain some very dark clouds. There will be a lot of good news that will tempt investors to see only the silver linings as they will indeed be pretty, but ignoring the future potential for dark clouds to overwhelm them will result in problems. Now let's run down my predictions. I know that I am not giving you the supporting data, but I promise to do so in coming weeks. First, the economy will grow above my longer term Muddle Through forecast of 2-2.5% per year as an average for the decade. I feel more comfortable thinking about the longer term trend. We are in a decade long secular bear market, and will trade sideways to down for many years. The next recession will see the market making new cycle lows. But enjoy the run as long as it lasts. more. . . safehaven.com