Abby Joseph Cohen

» Kirk - Abby J Cohen Summary

Anyway...

today the S&P500 is at $1489 so I did the calculations for her numbers:

  Date    S&P500   Change
12/31/00   1575    up 5.8%
 6/31/01   1650    up 10.8%

Not bad. She said "mid next year target" and I gave it a date. Perhaps 6% in 3 months and 11% in 10 months is NOTHING to sneeze at. Remember, Abby said to lighten on technology near the top of the NASDAQ run (I think she and MSFT/DOJ started the correction/bear there) and she said she saw value then in Corp Bonds, REITs and Financials. She was right.

Now she says to go for diversity and she still likes HIGH QUALITY technology, pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology but of course these will be bumpy.

-- posted by Kirk

» Kirk - Abby says worries overdone

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs & Co. chief strategist Abby Joseph Cohen said on Thursday (9/21/00)that equity-market concerns about higher oil prices, a weak euro and corporate profits are ''overdone'' and will be ``short-lived.''

``Investors have been recently unnerved by an assortment of developments and concerns,'' Cohen said in a note to clients. ''We conclude that the reaction to these has been somewhat overdone and that the intermediate- and long-term view remains quite bright.''

Cohen, one of Wall Street's most widely watched strategists, said the backdrop for the U.S. economy ``remains quite favorable'' and reiterated her year-end price target of 1575 for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and 1650 by mid 2001. The S&P 500 index on Wednesday was at 1451.

She retained her recommended asset allocation mix of 65 percent equities, 27 percent fixed income, 3 percent commodities, and 5 percent cash. The mix has been unchanged since March this year.

-- posted by Kirk

» Kirk - Cohen renews tech sector bullishness

NEW YORK, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Goldman's technology stock brain trust said on Tuesday the hard-pressed sector is poised for a comeback within the next several weeks as profit outlooks strengthen and relative valuations improve.

``We believe that the backdrop for investments in technology is favourable,'' Abby Joseph Cohen, one of Wall Street's most influential stock analysts, said in a conference call, reevaluating a sector she had labeled as overvalued in March.

She said the plunge in technology stock prices in the last six months had reduced her concerns about relative valuations. The recent deceleration in the U.S. economy was laying the groundwork for a favourable new economic cycle, she argued.

``Stocks do best not necessarily when profits are at their best but when investors are confident about their growth visibility,'' Cohen said.

Goldman's technology researchers said during the call they favoured three segments of the industry: storage systems providers, network equipment and Internet infrastructure software suppliers. Analyst Laura Conigliaro said Goldman's top picks were EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC - news), Network Appliance Corp. (NasdaqNM:NTAP - news), Juniper Networks Inc. (NasdaqNM:JNPR - news), Cisco Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:CSCO - news), Oracle Corp. (NasdaqNM:ORCL - news) and BEA Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:BEAS - news).

-- posted by Kirk

» Kirk - Abby Interview in Money.com

THE GURU
Abby Joseph Cohen

To find out where Cohen sees investing opportunities today, MONEY visited the market visionary at her 47th-floor office in lower Manhattan, admiring not just the stupendous vistas but the personalized bowling shirt she'll wear to an upcoming tournament between the firm's research analysts and a group of traders. Who are the better bowlers? we ask. Cohen just smiles. "We have the trophy," she says. "We'll see what happens." Our bet's on Abby.

Q. This time last year you described yourself as "bullish, but not pounding the table." Where do you stand now?

A. We suggested to our clients in March that they reduce exposure to equities from 70% to 65% for a balanced portfolio. That's about where you'd be when you expect returns to be close to the historical trend. We're not bearish--we think the economy is in very, very good shape. But the stock market isn't as cheap as it was.

Q. You also changed the sector weightings in your model portfolio.

A. We're no longer overweight in technology. Last year we were saying that tech and telecom combined should be 35% of a portfolio, and the weighting on the S&P 500 for those sectors was 28%. By March, the S&P 500 weighting was 42%. We're still at 35%. While technology is a solid place to be invested, it's not the valuation opportunity it used to be.

Q. What sectors do you think represent good opportunities today?

A. Pharmacological and biotechnology stocks are, in many ways, the next area of great scientific development. U.S. companies are right at the top. I'd add that we expect this area to be somewhat volatile as discussion about Medicare and drug reimbursement heats up during the political campaign. Our analysts like Merck. It has some very promising new products, and many of its existing drugs are selling beyond consensus expectations.

Q. Are you a fan of financial services stocks?

A. Yes. While the Fed has been raising rates and may do so some more, most of the worst news is already reflected in stock prices.

The stocks of banks and other financial services companies are now among those with the lowest price/earnings ratios. Most sell at a notable discount to the average P/E of the S&P 500, despite solid fundamental performance.

We like Bank of America. It has tremendous cross-selling opportunities, is increasing its focus on online banking and is refocusing its international strategy. Our estimate of long-term growth is 14%; our earnings estimate for the next fiscal year puts its P/E at 9.6. Other financial services stocks we like are John Hancock Financial Services and consumer-finance company Household International.

Q. What other areas look promising?

A. One sector that we think has been left behind is real estate-related stocks. Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have suffered from benign neglect. They're not included in the S&P 500, so many portfolio managers don't have them in their benchmarks. One REIT we like is Equity Office Properties, the largest REIT in the U.S. It has great earnings visibility, geographic diversification and is an innovative company. It's positioning itself to capture revenue opportunities from companies, such as Coke, that want access to the employees of the tenants in their buildings. Our analysts also like Boston Properties.

In the energy sector, we like ExxonMobil, Dynegy and Schlumberger. ExxonMobil has a very high-quality management team and we like their capital discipline. The share price is not as levered to oil prices as some other energy companies'. Dynegy, once a relatively small natural gas liquids company, is merging with Illinova, an electric utility. It's one of the fastest-growing energy companies in the world. Schlumberger wants to be the leading technology-focused oil services company in the world and is taking a number of major steps in that direction.

Q. Any tech stocks that you like?

A. We like IBM. We see improvement in nearly all of its businesses. Our analyst thinks that IBM is ready to move from a period of recovery into a period more notable for sustainable growth and profitability.

Q. Should investors be concerned about the increased volatility in the stock market?

A. Today's volatility is normal. We now have a situation where people are paying about what they should be for stocks. So if there is a disappointment, people get ticked off. Investors have to keep in mind that if they've done the fundamental homework properly, things will ultimately come their way. They may not have gratification between now and next Tuesday, but it will happen.

--Suzanne Woolley

-- posted by Kirk

» Kirk - Goldman's Cohen Says Slump Overdone

Friday October 13 11:42 AM ET
Goldman's Cohen Says Slump Overdone

By Brinley Bruton

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The recent stock market slump is overdone and makes stocks a good buy, especially because a strong U.S. economy will keep boosting corporate profit growth, one of Wall Street's most influential stock analysts, Goldman Sachs' Abby Joseph Cohen, said on Friday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index -- which closed on Thursday at 1325.21 --is undervalued by 15 percent, said Cohen, who has been one of Wall Street's most bullish market-watchers. She reiterated her year-end S&P 500 Index target of 1575.

``Importantly, our economic outlook still calls for real GDP growth averaging 3 percent to 4 percent in coming quarters, close to the trend rate suggested by productivity gains and labor force growth,'' Cohen said in a research note sent to clients and the press.

Falling stock prices have made valuations more attractive, she said.
[EC: no kidding!]

The S&P 500 index rebounded in morning trading, rising 1.6 percent to 1,351.09. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average also moved into positive territory to hit 10,119. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose almost 2 percent in morning trading, after falling 3 percent to 3,074 on Thursday.

Stocks on Thursday hit year-lows on escalating violence in the Middle East, which sent oil prices surging. The market was also spooked by a warning of yet another brand-name company, U.S. home improvement retail giant Home Depot Inc. (NYSE:HD - news) that profit growth would slow.

Recent corporate earnings warnings, which have sent shivers through the markets, are overshadowing solid profit growth at many companies, Cohen said. The warnings in part are spurred by new rules that will require companies to disclose financial information to the public, instead of to a select group of analysts and money managers, she added.

A series of companies issued earnings warnings during the last week, including chemicals concern Union Carbide Corp (NYSE:UK - news) and technology giant Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT - news).

While the pre-announcement period -- the time when companies tend to issue negative announcements in preparation for the upcoming earnings period -- is largely over, it is still too early to properly analyze third-quarter results, Cohen said. However, of the companies that have announced, more than 70 percent have reported above expectations, she said.

Along with the falling stock prices have come improved valuations, said Cohen. Goldman's valuation for the S&P 500 has assumed there will be a moderation in profit growth to about 8 percent from 20 percent, and a rise in core inflation, Cohen said.

On Friday the U.S. government announced that the Producer Price Index, a key gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 0.9 percent in September, vs. expectations for a 0.5 percent rise.

Goldman already predicted that there would be a deceleration in the pace of economic and profit expansion before the end of the year, Cohen said.

``It would appear that investors' feverish wish of last winter, for a less robust economy, has been fulfilled,'' she said.

As for escalating violence in the Middle East, which helped fuel Thursday's sell-off partly on fears that it would push energy prices up, Cohen said Goldman had not changed its baseline scenario in which energy prices would begin to decline next spring.

-- posted by Kirk

» Kirk - Abby now on CNBC:

She said they went to 35% in technology last March when it was 45% in the S&P500. That is why she lowerd her allocation to underweight the sector. She went to overweighted to Financials and Energy last March and you know what these did!

With the correction in technology stocks we've had, she says she is now comfortable with their 35% market weighting of Technology.

(I guess that means she has been buying technology to bring her tech allocation up to 35% since it would have declined about 1/3 to 25% or so with the recent correction.)

Well, seems that Abby and myself were buying tech the past weeks... 8)

-- posted by Kirk

» Mark_J - Nice of her to give us a run down of "What I did last summer.

-- posted by Mark_J

» Kirk - Business Highlights of GS

Goldman Sachs ranked first in worldwide, U.S. and European initial public offerings and public stock offerings.(1)

The firm advised clients on announced mergers and acquisitions valued at more than US$850 billion in the calendar year through August, and ranked first in both announced and completed U.S. and European transactions. (1)

The firm's Trading and Principal Investments business achieved record net revenues of US$2.12 billion, as all major components of the business exhibited strong results.

Assets under supervision increased 14% to US$581 billion and assets under management grew 11% to US$308 billion, compared to the prior quarter.

In August, the firm successfully completed its US$4.6 billion secondary offering - the largest U.S. secondary offering.

To compare her to a "market timimg to get rich quick" newsletter writer with only $650M under management.. is a joke.

-- posted by Kirk

» JenL_2 - Abby Alert

Author: Rande
Date: October 23, 2000 9:07 AM
Subject: Abby Alert

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo spoke with Goldman Sachs’ chief market strategist Abby Joseph Cohen Monday morning.

Cohen says there are three sectors that hold some short-term opportunities: energy, technology and financial services. "In financial services, there are a grave concerns that we think are unwarranted about rising interest rates or increasing defaults," she said. "The sector holds a number of opportunities."

In technology, Cohen said many technology weightings in the overall S&P have now declined to where Goldman Sachs is recommending. "So we are feeling more comfortable about that sector," she said.

Cohen

Rande Spiegelman

-- posted by JenL_2

» JenL_2 - Comfortable Cohen

<img src="http://www.geocities.com/jeninvestor/abb..." width=500 height=367>
from BearForum.com

.....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2