Monday, September 12, 2011

Life on the Financial Plateau

Stephen Wood,PhD,Chief Market Strategist at Russell Investments,thinks it could be an O.K. year.Earnings estimates are gonna decelerate,but the S&P 500 index is doing real well in terms of earnings per share.A 13% gain for the year will be predominantly based on earnings.From a corporate perspective,the U.S. looks relatively healthy.
The consumer is not dead;just deleveraging.Just lean into the consumer a little bit.Consumers saving is something we've seen for some time.
We've recovered and kind of plateaued out.It's not a recession,but it's not gonna be strong growth,either.Look at what's happened to the Treasury in the U.S.
Ultimately,we've got a long time to solve the problems-and they can be solved,which isn't necessarily the case in Europe.The collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15,2008 really caught everyone by surprise.In Europe,it's not gonna be that startling.The question is,who's gonna be the one who gets hit,in Dr.Wood's view.
As its purpose,Russell Investments improves financial security for people.Founded in 1936,it has 163.4 billion dollars in assets under management for individuals,institutions and financial professionals.It also creates performance benchmarks in the form of the Russell indexes.

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