STOCK MARKET WATCH - Wednesday, 1 February 2012

[Ghost Dog]

90. Global Strategists Abandoning Bearish Views

... Just two weeks after saying that investors should “remain cautious,” Larry Hatheway, the chief economist at UBS AG (UBSN), raised his recommendations on global shares and high-yield bonds in a Jan. 23 note to customers entitled, “Wrong, but not too late.” Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS), and Benoit Anne, the global head of emerging-markets strategy at Societe Generale (GLE) SA, said their estimates for developing nations were proven wrong.

The MSCI All-Country World Index (MXWD) climbed 5.7 percent in January, surprising strategists at Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Plc (BARC) who had forecast first-half losses because of Europe’s debt crisis. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Citigroup Inc. (C), which predicted the rally in stocks, say it will continue as the U.S. housing market rebounds and China eases lending restrictions to bolster economic growth.

“In hindsight, everybody was so beared up at the end of last year,” Mary Ann Bartels, the New York-based head of technical and market analysis at Bank of America, who predicted on Dec. 27 that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index would probably fall about 15 percent in the first half before recovering, said in a Jan. 31 phone interview. “There was nowhere for the market to go but up.”

Investor confidence improved after the European Central Bank announced a three-year lending program for banks, the Federal Reserve said it will keep benchmark interest rates low through at least 2014 and reports showed a stronger U.S. labor market and slower Chinese inflation.

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-01/global-strategists-abandoning-bearish-views-after-missing-rally.html