ING's Landesman: Bears have it wrong

The stock market is mistakenly seeing the glass as half empty, says Uri Landesman, head of global growth at ING Investment Management Americas. He cited the stock market's negative start today as evidence of “some cross-currents” that might have investors confused and conflicted. “I'm surprised at the way the market is trading off right now,” Mr. Landesman said. “It's a little odd.” Mr. Landesman, who manages $1.7 billion worth of pension account assets, believes investors are too focused on recent comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggesting a slower recovery, the recent strength of the U.S. dollar, unemployment data, and Dubai World's debt problems. “Right now, I see more good news than bad news,” he said. He highlighted as positive signs the pre-earnings announcement today by FedEx Corp. (FDX), which has the company on track to report earnings per share of $1.10 for the quarter ended Nov. 30. This is well above the published forecast of 86 cents per share. “I see FedEx as a bellwether that is tracking economic activity, and yet we've seen a muted response from the overall market,” he said. At 10:45 a.m. Eastern time today, the share price of FedEx was up more than 2.5%, compared to a drop of almost 1% by the S&P 500. Mr. Landesman also thinks the market is misreading the most recent unemployment data, which showed a drop of two-tenths of one percent, to 10%. While the drop is slight he said it significant that there were only 11,000 new unemployment claims in November. “Given some of the wild swings in unemployment reports, people might be skeptical about some of this data,” he said. “But if next month we see unemployment holding at 10%, I think you might be able to say 10.2% in October was the peak for unemployment.” Another issue that's putting downward pressure on the market is the sudden relative strength of the dollar, which had been dropping while the stock market was climbing. “I don't see any reason the dollar and the stock market have to be inversely correlated,” he said. “The dollar is getting more succor from the employment numbers than the stock market is.” Portfolio Manager Perspectives are regular interviews with some of the most respected and influential fund managers in the investment industry. For more information, please visit InvestmentNews.com/pmperspectives .