Persbureau Reuters vroeg beleggingsanalisten van een aantal toonaangevende beleggingsbanken in Europa, de V.S. en Azië naar hun visie op de huidige ontwikkelingen op de aandelenmarkt. De consensus is dat de indexen niet verder zullen vallen. In onderstaand Engelstalig bericht vindt u een verslag van de bevindingen.
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Reuters poll on major world stock indices
The following is an overview of the findings:
Weary strategists bet stocks can't fall further
By Ruth Pitchford
LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Share prices are floundering under a mountain of corporate debt, profits are being squeezed and scandal has spooked investors, but strategists say stock markets will struggle higher between now and the year end.
A Reuters poll of more than 90 analysts in North America, Europe and Asia found them slashing forecasts, predicting major share indices will end the year well below where they began in January. But most stopped short of forecasting further losses.
"The scandals are starting to fall off the front page," said Tom Galvin, strategist for Credit Suisse First Boston in New York. "If we can get through the next two weeks of corporate earnings (guidance), we can feel more comfortable."
The mid-range forecasts from the survey tip the U.S. Standard and Poors 500 index to regain 19 percent between now and the end of the year. But the year-end prediction of 1,000 is 13 percent down on where the index ended 2001.
It's a similar picture for the other exchanges. But that all assumes things won't get any worse.
RECESSION AND IRAQ
"I'd put a plus or minus 20 percent on the forecasts," said Gary Dugan at J.P. Morgan Fleming Asset Management in London, predicting major European indices would just about manage to cling to current low levels so long as central banks hold down official interest rates.
"That's the problem we have with the markets at the moment -- little economic growth next year, central banks helping a little bit but no one really truly convinced and people just running scared of downgrades to the forecasts."
Strategists are pushing aside two big fears that nag at them all: that the United States will get entangled in a drawn-out conflict with Iraq; and that the U.S. economy will tumble back into recession after just a few months of growth.
In addition, they are all hoping the markets are currently finding a base -- clambering up a bit, then sliding back to a level where investors keep quitting until eventually even the worst news no longer flushes out fresh sellers.
"Maybe there'll be a trigger where we see a sellout, very weak markets with incredibly high volume -- then we can mark the bottom," said Giuseppe Amato at Lang & Schwarz in Duesseldorf.
"But I don't think we'll go into another bull market in the next two or three years. The structural problems are too great."
One of the biggest problems is the debt that companies took on during the high-tech bubble of the late 1990s. They paid too much to buy up companies with inflated share prices -- and it wasn't just telcos and tech companies that got caught. Merger mania infected many other sectors, too.
There was plenty of credit around then. Now it's dried up. Central banks have slashed official rates but market rates for corporate lending have risen sharply and lenders are choosy.
BUBBLES AND SCANDALS
Inflation, which erodes the true value of debt, remains low and consumers aren't accepting price increases, keeping a squeeze on profits. And when companies do report profits, investors are scrutinising the balance sheet far more critically than in the past after a slurry of accounting scandals.
So share prices have tumbled, and even the year-end rallies being forecast won't take them back even to 2001 levels.
Asian indices are tipped to rally by as much as 22 percent but still make losses on the full year -- five percent for Japan's Nikkei; 3.5 percent for Hong Kong's Hang Seng; one percent for the main Taiwan index and five percent in Australia.
Japan has already endured a decade of economic stagnation after its own multiple market bubble burst in the late 1980s. Now the authorities are taking increasingly unorthodox steps to try to avert financial crisis among debt-laden banks.
"A lesson from the past is that optimists are always betrayed and disappointment hits the market," said Tetsuya Ishijima at Okasan Securities in Tokyo. "So we can't be fully confident about seeing a bright future."
In Europe, Britain's blue chip index is tipped to end the year down 14 percent on 2001; the German DAX index down 24 percent and the French CAC40 down 23 percent. The main Canadian index is forecast to end the year down nine percent.
PRICES STILL TOO HIGH?
Yet by a lot of old-fashioned valuation measures that got discarded in the 1990s, U.S. shares in particular are still overvalued. So what are investors to do?
Disregard the ratios, according to some. Lehman Brothers in New York sent a note to clients this week finding fault with measures involving items such as dividend payments and reported earnings.
Companies place less emphasis than they used to on dividend payments, say the analysts, while reported earnings include restructuring charges and write-offs which exaggerate overvaluation by peaking during a recession.
But if you're still worried, says Gert de Mesure at Delta Lloyd Securities in Antwerp, try doing more homework.
He advises investors to seek out big companies with enough cashflow to manage their debt, or little companies whose innovative products can create their own market.
"In the past you could rely on buying one or other index and whoosh! you're sitting on a train and it will transport you," said de Mesure. "Now it's a little more difficult."
The analysts all concede that it will be years before stock prices recover enough to revive those 1990s dreams of a comfortable early retirement.
"This bear market is very heavy," said Amato in Duesseldorf. "If you can say in the year 2011 that you've made an average six or seven percent (annual profit) during this decade, then you're a great investor."
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