A Season of Doubt Grips Wall Street; With Economy Soft, Insiders See No Set Direction This Fall
With the presidency up for grabs, the economy sputtering and the dollar scraping all-time lows, Wall Street analysts say the stock market is likely to jump around a lot in the autumn without establishing a firm direction.</br></br>Doubts about the market have risen this summer, a season that has disappointed stock buyers. A modest rally collapsed last month and dropped the Dow Jones industrial average to its lowest point since April. The economic recovery lost momentum during the summer, and political uncertainties rose as President Bush trailed Democratic challenger Bill Clinton in opinion polls.</br></br>Looking at the long term, there is considerable dispute among professional market strategists over whether stock prices are too high or too low, based on the outlook for profits and on the attractiveness of alternate investments such as bonds.</br></br>But a consensus does exist among many seers that, at least until the November election, the stock market is likely to show no clear trend while being jerked up and down by the latest economic or political news.</br></br>"You're looking at a stock market that at the very least will be volatile, and could be worse than that" in the autumn, said Robert H. Stovall, president of Stovall/Twenty-First Advisers Inc., a money management firm here.