(MarketWatch) Even with stocks continuing to dance around record territory, investors aren’t just cautious, they’re “scared to death” of what’s next, and that’s great news for those hoping to keep riding this aging bull market well into 2020, according to Jeff Saut, chief investment strategist at Capital Wealth Planning.
“Central banks of the world are printing money, and that’s all you really need to know,” Saut told CNBC in a recent interview. “Secular bull markets tend to run 15 to 20 years. They’re not interrupted by 20% to 30% declines.”
‘I think we’ve got years left on the upside.’
He pointed to the 1949-1966 secular bull market, which endured a 30% drop, but managed to recover from there. Also, he noted the 1987 crash amid the 1982-2000 bull stretch that ended up being only a blip in the overall advance.
“I think we’ve got years left on the upside,” Saut said, targeting a potential gain of more than 13%, to 3,600, by the S&P 500 SPX, +0.67% next year. The “seasonality tailwinds” should give stocks a boost in the final weeks of 2019 and the buying should continue from there, he told CNBC on Friday.
Saut has his eye on one corner of the market, in particular, that he expects will keep turning in a strong performance, and that’s small caps IWM, +0.85% , both at home and abroad. “You have what a technical analysis would call a golden cross, where the 50-day moving average crossed above the 200-day moving average on the Russell 2000 Small Cap index,” he said.
