Barron's 2008 Roundtable Part 3 - What Now?

YES, OUR ROUNDTABLE MEMBERS EXPECTED the stock market to struggle in this year's first half. But nearly collapse in its first month? That wasn't in anyone's playbook when we gathered on Jan. 7 for our annual gabfest about all things investment-related. And yet, the Dow industrials have plummeted 8% since the start of 2008, the Nasdaq Composite, 12%. Fearing a recession, the Federal Reserve has lopped a fat three-fourths of a percentage point off its short-term interest-rate target, while Washington has cooked up a "stimulus" package to put cash in consumers' pockets. And overseas marts, from Brazil to Germany to India, have tanked by double digits. So much for the hope that the rest of the globe had "decoupled" from America's problems -- a notion, you might recall, that our experts scoffed at in these pages two weeks ago.

Given last week's carnage, we thought it wise to check in again with the five investment pros whose picks and pans for the new year are featured in this final Roundtable installment. What, we wondered, do Felix Zulauf, Abby Joseph Cohen, Marc Faber, Archie MacAllaster and Scott Black make of the mighty downdraft in shares, and what might it portend?

Direct Link - What Now?

Barron's 2008 Roundtable Part 2 - Getting Defensive

NO WIMPS ALLOWED IS THE UNSPOKEN rule at our annual Roundtable. That's because the leading investment lights we assemble each January must make the case for their picks, pans and predictions not only to the editors of Barron's but each other, a legendary tough crowd. This year; especially, few assumptions were left unchallenged, perhaps because spot-on stock-picking will have to do the heavy lifting if the group's gloomy economic and market forecasts prove prescient. Alas, since we met in Manhattan Jan. 7, they have.

Art Samberg, founder and chief of everything at Pequot Capital Management in Westport, Conn., is first up in this week's Roundtable installment, the second of three. Art made his name in tech, but makes his clients money wherever he finds value, which currently includes Turkey and Brazil. His '07 picks, in the main, were something to e-mail home about, and the savvy analysis that informs his latest recommendations -- in energy, technology and media -- helps explains why.

Fred Hickey, who pens the High-Tech Strategist newsletter in Nashua, N.H., is a belt-and-suspenders investor these days, with a particular fondness for gold. He probably should have worn a helmet, too, when he was forced to defend a pair of tech shorts, since similar recommendations made last year haven't worked out -- yet. Then again, Fred has been there before, loudly warning investors away from "can't miss" stocks that later missed.

The U.S. housing market is in a bit of a pickle; new-home construction plunged last year to a near-three-decade low. Not that that stopped Meryl Witmer, a partner in New York's Eagle Capital Partners, from heaping praise on a pair of housing-related concerns at our latest confab. With her knack for research and nose for numbers, Meryl time and again looks beyond the obvious, which has made her one of today's most successful -- and admired -- investors.

Mario Gabelli, head of Gamco Investors in Rye, N.Y., is the closer this week, with nine picks on both sides of the Atlantic and an 18-year-old bottle of Scotch, another of his annual Roundtable props. His investment ideas, which range from auto parts to satellites to food and drink, need no propping up, however, given Mario's expertise in both deals and steals.

The Roundtable's other members chimed in early and often as these four went to work. If two opinions make a market, 11 make for energetic and entertaining debate.

Direct Link - Getting Defensive.

Barron's 2008 Roundtable - After the Deluge

DON'T LET THESE MOSTLY SMILING FACES fool you. We just as easily could have called the opening installment of the 2008 Roundtable "Before the Deluge"-that is, before the great unwinding of a quarter-century of excesses that our panelists, to a one, predict will set the investment tone for much of this year. Their forecasts for the U.S. economy are particularly sobering: a recession, or growth so tepid it will feel like one. Fortunately, their expectations for the U.S. stock market are considerably more upbeat, especially for the second half of the year.

This year's Roundtable met Jan. 7 in lower Manhattan, amid unseasonably balmy weather -- except for the blizzard of sell orders that morning, just down the Street. Drilled and grilled 'til well past dark by Barron's editors, our latest crew of 11 money managers and market seers shed copious light on subjects that ranged from inflation to interest rates to sovereign wealth funds and the price of breakfast in Paris. (Did we mention the Giants-Cowboys game?) One minute we were all in the 1960s, debating Kennedy-style tax cuts to help the middle class. Then it was on to the '70s; predictions of stagflation tend to do weird things like that. A year ago, you read nary a word about that eight-letter word "subprime." This year, you'll read lots about the nation's mortgage mess, and the folks who brought it to you.

Direct Link - After the Deluge.