It’s bad enough that you’ve had to grind it out through a tortuous three-year bear market.

What’s worse is that the so-called smart money on Wall Street has helped turn your pockets inside out with annual bullish pronouncements that have missed the mark by a country mile.

The silliness continues.

A recent Barron’s cover story trumpets stock market forecasts by the same people who have been shooting themselves in both feet. How can anyone take these farcical predictions seriously anymore?

Of course, Wall Street doesn’t give a damn that its market strategists can’t shoot fish in a barrel. Otherwise, the eternal optimists with their broken crystal balls would have all been canned by now and working standup on the Comedy channel.

A year ago, Barron’s trumpeted the 2002 targets for the S&P 500 by 10 of the most prominent strategists. Only one of them, Douglas Cliggott, then of J.P. Morgan, had the guts to make a bearish call with a 950 prediction for the S&P 500 (even though he wasn’t bearish enough as the S&P ended 2002 at 879).

The other nine were out to lunch. Big time. Most of them missed the mark for the third straight year. All were off the mark by 30 per cent or more for 2002. Only two of them were shown the door.

“Easy” Ed Kerschner at UBS Warburg pegged the S&P to finish 2002 at 1,570, almost double where it wound up. He’s still gainfully employed.

Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street’s celebrated slugger during the ’90s bull market, continued to disgrace herself and her firm with a 1,363 call on the S&P for 2002.

Now, despite a dearth of hard economic data to support the prospects for a sustained market rebound, and the ominous clouds of political hotspots Iraq and North Korea hanging over the market, Wall Street firms continue to issue rosy forecasts.

Cohen is the biggest bull in Barron’s latest forecasts. Her dart – assuming her predictions are the product of blind-folded dart throwing – hit 1,150 on the S&P dartboard for 2003. That would be a robust 28-per-cent jump for the S&P.

You figure one of these years Cohen has to get it right. Business Week recently interviewed 65 of the “geniuses” on Wall Street and 62 of those said stocks would rise in 2003, which should have market contrarians hiding under their beds.

Bay Street analysts generally tend to be a bit more sober with their prognostications. Robert Spector, senior economist and strategist with Merrill Lynch Canada, for example, is targeting 1,075 for the TSX composite for 2003, which would represent a six-per-cent gain.

But Calgary market watcher Josef Schachter recently gave the Edge his 2003 forecast, and he was even more bullish than Cohen.

Schachter, president of Schachter Asset Management, said the Dow Jones Industrial Average would reach 11,000 or higher in 2003, which is even more optimistic than Cohen’s target of 10,800.

Schachter also targeted the TSX Composite to hit a lofty 8,500.

Considering the way the Street continues to play Pied Piper to the gullible masses, investors may be well advised to focus on stocks rather than the stock market.

* STREET TALK: The talking heads on ROB TV and CNBC just don’t get it when it comes to gold. They constantly attribute gold rallies to geopolitical factors (i.e. Iraq and North Korea) or safe-haven buying when it is being powered by the falling the U.S. dollar.

Gold continues to be written off in some circles as an outdated relic even after the TSX gold index was up 42.5 per cent in 2002 and continued to steal the show in the first week of the new year, breaking out to more than $350 US per ounce in New York.

Although some gold stocks are starting to appear a little frothy, some technical analysts claim gold may have little resistance to the $420 mark.

The energy index was a distant second in 2002, gaining 11.3 per cent.

* CHEERS: To the five Alberta companies that made the list of The 50 Best Canadian Companies To Work For in a study by Stanley Hewitt Associates.

Edmonton-based Intuit Canada and Chemco Electronic Contractors were ranked No. 8 and No. 43 respectively. Three Calgary-based companies also got the nod – Bennett Jones LLP (No. 34), Shell Canada (No. 36) and Nexen (No. 37).

* JEERS: To Louis Rukeyser, host of Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street on CNBC, who shied away from asking the tough questions of Goldman Sachs strategist Abby Joseph Cohen on the first program of the new year. Like: ‘How do you keep your job?’



HOT ALBERTA STOCK: Tiberon Minerals
TBR-TSX $2.49
Up 44 cents (+21.5%) on 186,000 shares (for week ending Jan. 3).
Tiberon kicked off the new year in champagne-popping form, edging near its 12-month high of $2.80. The Calgary mining company announced encouraging exploration results in December at its Vietnamese
polymetallic property and has also gotten a boost from its graduation to the TSX from the Venture exchange. Tiberon owns a 70-per-cent stake in the Nui Phao property.



COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Collicutt Hanover Services
COH-TSX $2.75
Down 65 cents (-23.6%) on 7,600 shares (for week ending Jan. 3).
Collicutt earned the dubious prize as the coldest stock on the TSX over $1. The stock took a beating in 2002 with reduced drilling and expenditures in the oilpatch, plummeting from a 12-month high of $6 despite the company's ability to show a profit. The Red Deer company fabricates and services natural gas compressors and power generation equipment.