Tell Me, Little Gypsy

Where is the stock market going? All ready to analyze the tea leaves and gaze into the crystal ball, 500 members of the National Federation of Financial Analysts Societies gathered in Manhattan last week to see what they could see. The analysts, who advise brokers on what to tell their customers, found the market's future full of ifs, ands & buts.

No one thought that a strong bull market was just around the corner, but some expected an "intermediate" rise. Said Chicago's Dow Theorist Justin F. Barbour: "The market pattern . . . suggests that 1949 will prove to be a 'Down' year." Then he hedged his remarks. If the market does not break decisively through its low point of last November, he said, it will be a Dow signal that there may be "an important rise." In any case, "a normal bull market is unlikely . . . until all the basic industries are confronted with . . . competitive conditions."

Manhattan's John H. Lewis of John H. Lewis & Co., who has been a bear for almost three years, had not changed his mind. But he hedged also. Said he: inflation and moderate deficit spending might "become a controlling and powerful bullish stimulant."

Glenn G. Munn of Manhattan's Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis seemed bullish. Said he: "Time is running out on this stock market [down] cycle." On the other hand, he was also bearish: "Business may be in a slow-motion rollover into an oldfashioned, spiraling, chain-reaction decline." However, investors should also remember that "we are in ... the Treasury-Keynesian-Keyserling cycle. That means Government intervention--cheating the silly down-cycle from its accustomed brutal innings."

Wall Street Economist Nicholas Molodovsky of White, Weld & Co. finally took the bull by the horns. Quoth he: "Stock prices are still engaged in a long-term basic cyclical decline. Yet I also believe that, within a shorter segment of time, we are now at the inception of a significant intermediate rise."

As the seers packed up their charts and headed for home, only one question was left unanswered: Where is the stock market going?

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