Big Move Is Expected By the Dow --- But While Some See A Dash to Records, Others Predict Drops
Think the stock market is getting boring? After all, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has bobbed along for the past month within a range of less than 2%.</br></br>Don't be fooled. This placid period is, for many analysts, a warning that something big is brewing. But will it be a storm of selling? Or is the market gathering strength for a leap to record highs?</br></br>Robert Robbins, chief market strategist for Robinson Humphrey in Atlanta, likens the stock market to trench warfare. "You've got a war going between the opposing forces that are the main determinants of stock prices," he says. "Falling interest rates are trying to pull stock prices higher, while a worse-than-expected economic recovery is trying to pull them lower. The net result is that the market is stuck."</br></br>But Mr. Robbins is betting that the deadlock will soon be broken and that stocks are destined to head higher. "I will state clearly and emphatically that this market is a strong buy," he says, predicting that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will stand at 3200 by year end, and perhaps will reach 4000 by the middle of 1993.</br></br>His logic? Interest rates are in a long-term decline, the rate of which is likely to accelerate. He sees the yield on the Treasury's benchmark 30-year bond headed for 7.25% within six months, substantially below the current yield of 7.81%