Interview With Ronnie Moas Of Standpoint Research, Part II

In the second part of my interview with top ranked analyst, Ronnie Moas, of Standpoint Research, we talked about some specific stock picks as well as his view on the markets in 2010 and beyond. In Part I of our feature on Standpoint, we covered Ronnie’s performance track record and quantitative methodology.

Currently, Standpoint has 73 open Buy recommendations -- down from their all-time high of 105 open positions at the market low in Q1, 2009. So what is Standpoint Research betting on this month and for the rest of 2010? Well, fortunately for our readers, Ronnie gave us some specific stocks that he is advising his clients allocate capital to right now. He also offered me his outlook for this year and beyond in the markets. On a sector basis, Standpoint has recently changed from a bullish bias to a more defensive stance. As such, he is overweight in the consumer staples and healthcare sectors and underweight in financials and technology. In consumer staples, Standpoint likes grocer SuperValu Inc, (NYSE: SVU). Shares of SuperValu (SVU) have appreciated nearly 13% in the last month. In the healthcare complex Ronnie’s favorite pick is Pfizer (NYSE: PFE). With its acquisition of Wyeth, Pfizer (PFE) is currently the world's largest pharmaceutical company and a favorite of a number of prominent hedge funds. Standpoint is also recommending financial stocks New York Community Bank Corp. (NYSE: NYB) and MetLife (NYSE: MET). MetLife (MET) is the largest insurance company in the S&P 500. Despite being underweight technology, they have Buy ratings on Harris Corp. (NYSE: HRS) and Xerox (NYSE: XRX). Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) and PetroBras (NYSE: PBR) are a couple of other names Ronnie mentioned. PetroBras (PBR) is a $170 billion integrated oil and gas company based in Brazil.

Ronnie told me that he thinks it is very unlikely that the markets will appreciate at anywhere near the rate they did in 2009. He said that at best, stocks may rise 10% this year, but that a worst-case downside scenario could trigger a drop of 20%-30% from current levels on the major indices. He is bullish about the longer term prospects of the stock market, however, saying that it is highly likely that the next 10 years will be much better for stocks than the last decade of negative real returns adjusted for inflation. He even said that the Dow could double during this time period, although he doesn’t think there will be significant gains in the next couple of years. If you are interested in learning more about Ronnie Moas and his terrific performance over the last seven years, I encourage you to visit StandpointResearch.com. Also stay tuned to Benzinga.com, as we will continue to cover his picks and track his market sentiment.