Stupid Market Article of the Day...

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A growing group of forecasters see a monster-sized rally just ahead. Here's why -- plus 15 of StockScouter's top-rated market giants.
The professional Wall Street spin machine has kicked into overdrive in the past two weeks. A slew of strategists have stridden into the teeth of Hurricane October with forecasts saying stocks in the final three months of this year will clock in with a juicy 8% gain -- equal to the average fourth-quarter gain over the past decade.

As you might expect, there is plenty of bearish dissent, and the doomsayers certainly appear to have the upper hand of late. But more remarkable, perhaps, is a growing minority of forecasters who are looking for much, much better results...

A key element of both the Dent and Hays outlook is the observation that most extreme bull phases of the last century – 1915 to 1919, 1925 to 1929, 1935 to 1937, 1985 to 1987 and 1995 to 1999 -- were preceded by major corrections (or crashes), followed by a strong initial recovery and then a one-to-two-year trading range. Of course, the implication is that the crash in this case was the 2000-2002 bear market, the recovery rally happened in 2003 and the trading range was seen from 2004 to 2005. Dent suggests that the markets “are simply waiting for signs that the Fed can’t tighten much further” and for oil to correct below $58-to-$62 support levels “to suggest a top in that bubble.”

One prominent analyst who is looking for quite the opposite of a bull move is veteran technician John Murphy. In a note to clients over the weekend, he said a combination of Elliott Wave analysis, the four-year presidential cycle, seasonal trends, weekly and monthly index charts, sector rotations, rising inflation and higher interest rates have persuaded him that the cyclical bull market that started in the spring of 2003 “is just about over.” He added: “The most dangerous time for the market is the autumn of 2005 to the autumn of 2006."

You've got even below $58 dollar a barrel oil a significant dent in people's pocket books from higher gas and heating prices, you've got interest rate hikes with no immediate sign of stopping, you've got a president known for putting cronies above competence in charge of naming the next Federal Reserve Bank chairman, you've got the prospect of continued commodity inflation if the rest of the world continues on a growht course, and you've got bird flu, a wild card, that could kill tens of millions of people in the space of a short amount of time.


For some reason the markets have ignored the sage advice today from Jon Markman, contributing editor for MSN Money. I can't imagine why.