In the Watergate scandal, the key was to ''follow the money.'' On Wall Street, the key might be to ''follow the monkey," as in, monkey see, monkey do.
"The markets look ahead so we're trying to look ahead too," says Don Hays, Chairman and Chief Investment Strategist of Hays Advisory. With nearly half a century of experience to draw upon, this former NASA engineer also strives to keep things in perspective, especially in jittery times like these.
"Look back just a year ago, the June-July period, the market was much weaker then than it is now," he says. "When you start to think about it, when do you buy stocks? When the economy is somewhat suffering, when people are negative and they're sitting on the sidelines with huge cash reserves," Hays boldly states.
Add in a concerted effort by "the people in power" (including Ben Bernanke - who Hays thinks is the right man at the right time) who are doing everything they can to try to improve the economy and that's exactly what's happening now."
And then he offers the other side of perspective acknowledging that "you have to recognize that we've moved 100% in 30 months." Still, Hays thinks there's plenty more room for stocks to move higher, especially when housing and construction finally kick in, and his three proprietary market models that assess monetary policy, relative valuation, and psychology concur by suggesting anywhere from 16% to 36% upside in the next 12 to 18 months.
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