23.12.2001 - Wir stehen vor einem neuen Bullenmakt - und keiner merkt es - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[fanthomas]

Wir stehen vor einem neuen Bullenmarkt und kaum einer merkt es. Der Pessimismus und die Skepsis nehmen überhand und trotz eigentlich recht freundlichem Sentiment, sitzt der Schrecken der letzten zwei überaus negativen Börsenjahren noch allen in den Gliedern.

Fast alle Marktteilnehmer sind mittlerweile auf ständig fallende Börsenkurse konditioniert. Langfristcrashprognosen und Weltuntergangsszenarien haben Hochkonjunktur.

Alle diese Faktoren sprechen für eine mittel- bis langfristige Wende an den Aktienmärkten und für den Beginn eines neuen, gewaltigen Hausseschubes.

Neue Höchststände in den führenden, breiten Indizes werden wir schneller sehen, als wir es heute für möglich halten.

Dazu eine hervorragende Analyse von Ken Fisher:

Troubling Questions
Kenneth L. Fisher, Forbes Magazine, 01.07.02, 12:00 AM ET


The experts are saying we can`t do as well now as in the 1990s. They voiced the same fears ten years ago on the heels of the 1980s-and they were wrong.
Highly probable for 2002: an up year for U.S. stocks despite a down first quarter. I`ll flesh out this forecast in my Feb. 4 column. In the meantime, stay defensive. While we`re waiting for a time when it`s good to get back in the market, here are answers to questions I hear over and over again from anxious investors:

Isn`t the market`s high P/E going to put a lid on gains for 2002?

No. The truth is that the market`s price/earnings ratio is useless for forecasting. Fear of outsize P/Es is an example of what psychologists call the "illusion of validity." That`s the tendency to accept data confirming what our senses tell us while ignoring comparable data that contradict our perceptions.

Our brains are set up to fear heights, so a market with a high P/E--the S&P 500`s now is twice the historical norm-makes us afraid. But there is nothing in finance theory or history indicating P/E alone should predict anything, and much to indicate it shouldn`t. For every historical instance of a high- or low-P/E market doing badly or well over the following one or two years, there is a comparable instance of the reverse.

My buddy Meir Statman of Santa Clara University and I detailed all this at length in the fall 2000 Journal of Portfolio Management. But FORBES readers saw it here years beforehand. On rare occasions the market`s P/E is useful if linked to shifts in interest rates or market sentiment. By itself, though, P/E says simply nothing about market direction. Ignore it. Ditto for other standard valuation measures.

On the optimistic side, can we expect the market to do well simply because we are at war?

Maybe. History is mixed on this. If you bought into the Korean War, the investment paid off mightily, yet the same bet on Vietnam didn`t do well. It depends on the type of war and how the conflict plays out. I`m not sure that lessons gleaned from past wars apply today.

Is this a new era of lower long-term returns because of terrorism and the hangover from the tech mania?

No. First, we`re never in a new era. Fundamentally the market`s basic functioning never changes. Second, as I said in my Nov. 12 column, no right way exists to make accurate long-term forecasts. You may end up guessing right, but not for any sound analytical reason. You just were fortunate.

But isn`t it obvious we can`t do as well now as we did in the 1990s?

No. Folks said the same thing as the 1990s started. Right after the booming 1980s we faced a war, recession, rampant job downsizing and a glut of overleveraged companies. You always encounter negative outlooks after a terrific decade ends. The 1990s turned out pretty well, didn`t they? The current decade may be great or one to hate. No one can foresee the fate of stocks five to ten years out.

The pricing of stocks and bonds is always a function of supply and demand. Short-term pricing is affected more by demand, which bounces around freely as a function of temporary psychological factors such as fads (tech in the late 1990s) and fears (reluctance to fly, post-Sept. 11). In the short term the supply of stocks and bonds is constricted: Securities laws prevent anyone from pumping out fresh batches of paper at whim.

In the long term, however, supply is much more powerful in pricing than demand is. Supply is very elastic-meaning, companies are happy to issue shares if it means raising cheap capital relative to their sense of their future long-term borrowing costs. Since no one can predict far into the future those returns on capital, no one can predict where supply and demand for equity shares will come into balance.

Isn`t the risk of another terrorist attack enough to keep stocks down? What if they nuked Manhattan?

The market is a discounter of all known information, meaning what you read and hear commonly has been already well priced into markets. No event in my lifetime has been more heavily broadcast than the Sept. 11 terrorism. The chances of another attack have been much discussed and therefore priced into the market.

Clearly, the market has concluded that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban had no nuclear, nerve gas or biological capabilities. What they had were knives, boxcutters, gunmen on horseback and some crude Afghan labs less sophisticated than those in most Western high schools. The total effect of a few lucky suicide bombers will always be horrific but economically minuscule in our $20 trillion global economy.

It is natural for bear markets to create pessimism. Don`t let this one psych you out. A great time for stocks is soon approaching.

Kenneth L. Fisher is a Woodside, Calif.-based money manager. Find past columns at www.forbes.com/fisher.

[fanthomas]

bevor wieder nach einigen evtl. schwächeren wochen die ersten hiebe kommen.

diese analyse ist mittel- langfristig gedacht

thomas

[fanthomas]

was mich für 2002 optimistisch stimmt, sind die extrem gesunkenen fixkosten der unternehmen. der härteste wirtschaftsabschwung seit dem 2.weltkrieg wurde von unternehmensseite auch mit den schnellsten und härtesten sparmassnahmen beantwortet.

die produktivität wird bei einer weiter voranschreitenden wirtschafsterholung regelrecht explodieren, dazu natürlich auch die gewinne. die aktuell hohen kgvs könnten schon in wenigen quartlen wieder makulatur sein.

so schnell der abschwung auch war, wie bei einem gummiball wird nun wohl auch der aufschwung schneller und heftiger als wir uns aktuell noch vorstellen können.

thomas

[fanthomas]

zur erinnerung

[Optical42]

Will doch hier keiner hören sowas. Und das ist auch gut so...