Unemployed men wait outside a soup kitchen in Chicago in February 1931.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) � They are sentries at the stock market�s wall of worry, warning investors to prepare for another epic crash for debt-laden economies.
Yet with U.S. equity markets on a tear since early October, hitting levels not touched in several years, most of Wall Street isn�t seeing much cause for alarm.
But investors should be very afraid, the doomsayers caution.
�Hold cash, and keep it safe,� said Robert Prechter, head of market forecasting firm Elliott Wave International. �There will be another buying opportunity, probably about four years from now.�
Click to Play Spain is the worry, not Portugal
Markets have been preoccupied with Portugal, but the real linchpin to the success of the euro project in the short term is Spain. Vincent Cignarella explains why on Markets Hub. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Instead, increasingly optimistic buyers have pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA �above 13,000; the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP �over 3,000, and the Standard & Poor�s 500 Index SPX �past 1,400.
The gains extend beyond stocks. Gold may be off its September 2011 high of $1,907 an ounce, but is still in the respectable mid $1,600s, and oil �remains above $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, yields on both the 10-year Treasury note 10_YEAR and the 30-year bond 30_YEAR �are around a percentage point lower from a year ago, boosting bond values.
Also, the greenback is rising. The U.S. Dollar Index DXY , a measure of the dollar against six other major currencies, is up sharply over the past 12 months.
It�s enough to make a confirmed pessimist downright gloomy.
After all, what�s a doomsayer to do when it seems everything � even Europe � is rallying? Do you stand your ground in cash, or join the crowd and closely eye the exit?
Party like it�s 2007
Of the five prominent market skeptics interviewed for this article, four are reluctantly going along for the ride.
/quotes/zigman/627449 DJIA 12,617.32, -104.14, -0.82% /quotes/zigman/3870025 SPX 1,338.31, -12.21, -0.90% /quotes/zigman/123127 COMP 2,862.99, -27.16, -0.94% Climbing the wall of worry
The consensus among this group is that the rally is not sustainable � just another big party before an even bigger hangover. They see stock prices as being artificially inflated by Federal Reserve policies of quantitative easing and low interest rates, and that to put out the fires in Europe, the European Central Bank has gotten in on the act.
But, these strategists say, while these monetary drugs are palliative to markets, they require bigger doses for progressively dwindling results and will eventually fail.
Also, they believe the market�s valuation is stretched beyond what the fundamentals justify. Government policies are encouraging leveraged institutional investors and hedge funds to go long on stocks, they maintain, while cash-flush companies buy back outstanding shares from cash-strapped individual investors.
Individual investors, not incidentally, are engulfed by debt, the doomsayers point out. As they see it, consumers struggling to unwind debt are getting squeezed by higher food and energy costs. Accordingly, they�ll have even less disposable income to sustain corporate profits, the pessimists say. And one outcome these forecasters can all agree on is that the stage is being set for a big, ugly global stock-market crash.
Five shades of gray 1. Peter Schiff
Peter Schiff, chief executive of Euro Pacific Capital, said the worst investment now is bonds, because it�s the one asset that hasn�t been crushed. The second-worst option is cash, because the Fed insists that inflation is not a threat, he said.
Peter Schiff
Schiff is known for having called the 2007 financial crisis, and has been a vocal critic of artificially low interest rates set by the Fed.
Among stocks, Schiff said he�s focusing on multinationals and exporters, areas that have some insulation to a U.S. economy that he believes is heading for a crisis.
Earlier in the month, Euro Pacific�s asset management arm launched its EP Strategic U.S. Equity Fund EPUSX , which focuses on U.S. businesses that stand to benefit from increasing sales in overseas markets.
Schiff said the Fed can be in denial about inflation for only so long, and eventually will have to raise interest rates.
�They�ll keep [rates] low until the market forces them,� Schiff said. �It�s like trying to hide it when you�re pregnant, you can only do it for so long.�
He added: �If we get to 2014 and we don�t have a crisis, the Fed will keep rates low but at some point it won�t matter because we won�t have any money because we�ll be paying $30 for a carton of milk.�
