Dow 50,000! When to ignore the holiday hype for stocks
Published: Dec 12, 2016 10:35 a.m. ET
By

SHAWN LANGLOIS

Is this the week we ride the #TrumpTrain to Dow 20,000?
Hey, why not? Careful, though. Perhaps one final burst is all this rally can muster before we ascend to the “stock market peak of a lifetime,” only to watch as the Dow then hemorrhages 17,000 points, like one outspoken bear recently told CNBC.
“You can’t have stocks keep going up at this rate when earnings are going nowhere,” Harry Dent said last week. “I think it [the Dow] is going to end up between 3,000 and 5,000 a couple years from now.”
Yes, when big fat numbers like Dow 20,000 DJIA, +0.07% come along, it tends to bring out all sorts of wacky predictions. More than usual, anyway.
In that spirit, and as a counter to Dent’s apocalyptic vision, here’s another target: Dow 50,000, from the Sovereign Society’s Paul Mampilly.
“Stocks are on the cusp of an historic surge,” Mampilly says, in a take that we’ll anoint as our call of the day. “They could easily hit 50,000. It will be a bull market run that will dwarf the tech boom of the ’90s. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my career.”
Sure, there could be certain nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned from those looking to steal ink with outrageous targets, but most of these kinds of calls tend to get trashed — like this one on MarketWatch that Josh Brown pointed out last week.
It’s not all fun and games, says Philip Huber, chief investment officer for Huber Financial Advisors.
“These whiffs would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that there are a lot of hard-working people out there that don’t know any better and actually take action on these outlandish recommendations,” Huber wrote in a piece about how these kinds of forecasts are expected this time of year.
“But the reality is that the clock striking midnight on New Year’s Eve doesn’t make the crystal ball any less cloudy than it was before.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-50000-its-silly-season-for-market-calls-as-blue-chips-flirt-with-milestone-2016-12-12