By LAUREN R. RUBLIN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
In the second installment of the Roundtable, our pros' picks range widely over commodities, previous metals, financial stocks and big-cap tech. Two better-than-bonds plays.
If you read the first installment of this year's Barron'sRoundtable, you already know the sky is falling–but very, very slowly. It could take another year, or two or four, before the dollar tumbles, the euro crumbles and the price of gold, that great hedge against disaster, makes its way to the stratosphere.
Meanwhile, back here on earth, shrewd investors can find bargains aplenty among stocks, bonds, funds and even futures, as well as other neat ways to profit in a high-anxiety, ultra-low-interest-rate world. We rounded up 10 such investors two weeks ago, and sat them down at the Harvard Club of New York for a long day of intense conversation on where in the world to invest in 2011.
Last week we shared the big-picture views of these market savants. This week's installment -- the second of three -- typically features the investment picks and pans of several panelists. But those big, important issues, from economics to policy to politics, kept sneaking back into the conversation all day long, providing the basis for broad, thematic investment recommendations.
Thus, Felix Zulauf, head of Zulauf Asset Management in Zug, Switzerland, one of the savviest observers anywhere of the global investment scene, delivered a masterful disquisition on the bright past, rocky present and troubling future of the European Union, while Fred Hickey, editor of the not-to-be-missed High-Tech Strategist, published in Nashua, N.H., held forth eloquently on why gold is heading higher (in his case, to Canada) and many tech stocks, lower.
Then there was Pimco's Bill Gross, master of the universe of bonds. Few anywhere could better explain why the Federal Reserve's money-printing policies, which have promoted negative interest rates after inflation's effect, are tantamount to stealing from savers -- or how to profit from the insult.
Only Archie MacAllaster, head of New York's MacAllaster Pitfield MacKay, stuck to script, or plain old stock-picking, without a whole lot of color commentary. Then again, the dividends paid by his favorite financial concerns are colorful enough for almost any portfolio.
All four market pros are featured in this week's issue, along with the rest of the well-informed crew. It makes for lively, thought-provoking reading and, we hope, profit-provoking investments.