March 28, 2024

Bucks Blog: A Tough Year for Market Predictions

Richard Madigan, chief investment officer for J. P. Morgan’s Global Access Portfolios, has been right about something he wishes he had gotten wrong: unemployment in the United States.J.P. MorganRichard Madigan, chief investment officer for J. P. Morgan’s Global Access Portfolios, has been right about something he wishes he had gotten wrong: unemployment in the United States.

Who could have predicted the turmoil in the financial markets this year caused by the earthquake in Japan, the revolutions in the Middle East, European debt problems and the downgrade of American debt by Standard Poor’s? Not even the best forecasters.

Paul Sullivan, in his Wealth Matters column this week, goes back to four market prognosticators he has talked to each quarter this year to see what assessments they’ve gotten right and what they’ve gotten wrong. And what he found was that the best calls were the most conservative — moving into dividend-paying stocks and stocks of companies that get a significant proportion of their income from outside the United States.

Not surprisingly, none of the four was willing to go far in predictions for the fourth quarter, other than to say that markets would continue to be volatile.

How about you? What are your predictions for the markets in the upcoming quarter? In a time of market volatility, your guess may be as good as an expert’s.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=752f59ae88c7769b4366956557a1b87b

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