Fidelity brought together five top mutual fund managers to
help assess whether we have reached a turning point where the
bull market for bonds ends and a long term bull market for stocks
begins.
Topping the list of experts were
Ron Baron
and Billy Nygren. A couple of their comments are as follows (link
to the entire article at the bottom):
Bill Nygren
At Oakmark, we think many stocks look attractive, even if the
"new normal" crowd is right that we'll have negligible economic
growth. Companies are holding lots of cash, but they're not
necessarily investing it internally. Instead, we believe
management teams will be giving that capital back to
shareholders.
We believe one result of this allocation decision should be
better-than-average dividend growth. Another might be share
repurchases, which help earnings per share (
EPS
) grow substantially faster than net income. And we may also see
more acquisitions. I think there are a number of reasons we could
achieve historically normal EPS growth in a world where there
isn't much GDP growth.
Ron Baron
At Baron Funds, we are positive on the stock market and continue
to believe that valuations are attractive. U.S. interest rates
remain near historically low levels, and the fixed income markets
offer limited inflation-adjusted returns. Investors continue to
hold substantial sums in cash, which we believe will eventually
be deployed into equities. Regulators are increasing their
efforts to make our financial markets function more efficiently
and fairly. Our team believes this will help restore the faith of
individual and institutional investors in our capital markets.
Although America's growth during the next few years will probably
be slower than in prior decades, we believe that the competitive
advantage of our country's low-cost and plentiful shale energy,
at about one-third the cost of shale
energy
in the rest of the world, will boost our nation's growth, as will
the cost of electricity in America, which is now about half that
of the rest of the world.
At Baron, we think a recovering
housing
market, which has only recently begun to improve, will also
propel our nation's economic growth. About 40% of our nation's
jobs lost in the great recession were in construction. We think
the nascent housing recovery, and a greater need for
health care services
, will last for many years and will make an important
contribution to lowering unemployment. We also like firms
involved in
electricity transmission, health care, asset management,
hotels,
and many other areas.
Link to the full article: _[www.fidelity.com]
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