The S&P 500 Index (GSPC) pulled back from its 5-year high on Monday and stocks continued their downward slide in early trading Tuesday.

Russ Koesterich, chief investment strategist at BlackRock, expects a good year for equities even though he predicts markets will remain volatile in the first half of the year. In an interview with The Daily Ticker, he says emerging markets offer the most upside to investors in 2013.

Related: Can Aging Bull Market Regain the Blush of Youth?

Koesterich is particularly bullish on China, India and Brazil, former market darlings that have struggled to maintain their once torrid growth rates in the face of a global slowdown. Investor pessimism has made emerging markets relatively cheap now that inflation fears have subsided and local economies have begun to show signs of life.

Koesterich urges investors to directly invest in Chinese, Brazilian and Indian stocks but says U.S. multinationals still offer some benefits since they're exposed to the improving

With Tim Geithner set to resign, the U.S. is about to get a new Treasury Secretary.

So, who should it be?

According to some people, it should be Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning Princeton economist who is also a very popular (and controversial) columnist for the New York Times. There is a petition, started by actor Danny Glover, at Signop.org with nearly 225,ooo supporters as of Tuesday.

Unlike many economists who favor policies that conservatives like--austerity, reduced government spending, tight money--Krugman has been extremely outspoken in recent years about the need for more government spending to improve the economy. This stance has earned him the ire of Republicans, who believe that Krugman and his "liberal" ideas are part of the problem.

But unlike most conservative economists, Krugman has actually been right. The U.S. has not been consumed by hyper-inflation, the stimulus worked, the economy is growing, and unemployment is dropping, albeit slowly.

So it's not surprising