Formula Capital manager James Altucher says stocks can double from here because corporate America’s cash reserves are at an all-time high.
“Since the market topped in 2007, the market has actually added $200 billion in cash to their bank accounts,” Altucher tells CNBC. “I think stocks will go significantly higher over the next year.”
Assuming the S&P historical average price/earnings ratio of 16, “puts the market significantly higher than it is now … even if you’re pessimistic, that’s still 10, 20, 40 percent higher than it is now.”
Moreover, yields for 10-year Treasuries are now at 2.8 percent, Altucher points out, while the S&P 500 has an earnings yield of 7.7 percent.
Though corporations are also adding debt, Altucher says they are doing so in order to buy back stock. They are also increasing dividends at a record clip and buying companies with cash much faster than they were a year ago.
“CEOs are actually spending the cash they have in the bank,” Altucher says.
Consumer expenditures are at a high as well, notes Altucher, even though U.S. consumers aren’t necessarily buying here. “The savings rate has been going down,” he says.
According to Bloomberg Business Week, a report from Bespoke Investment Group says individual investors may be moving back into stocks.
“The individual investor either can’t make up his/her mind, or simply doesn’t even want to,” the report says. Investors are “looking out of the side window and reacting to the financial news of the day (or hour, for that matter).”
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