Barron’s Roundtable Is Bullish

The members of Barron’s 2018 Roundtable arrived at our annual gathering in a jolly mood. And why not? U.S. stocks returned an impressive 20% last year, and are off to the races again this year, propelled by expectations of good economic growth and robust corporate earnings. Our panelists, who spent Jan. 8 talking with the editors of Barron’s at the Harvard Club of New York, generally expect more of the same in the months ahead—more gains for equities, large-cap and small, as the global economy enjoys the most coordinated level of growth since the Eisenhower administration, notes Epoch’s William Priest. Few things these days, on Wall Street and elsewhere, merit that comparison. Helping the economy and profits, say our investment experts, is a spanking-new tax law that will lower corporate rates and encourage companies to repatriate cash that had been sitting overseas, including in enterprises established expressly to hide the dough from the tax man. No more; as the money flows home, expect fresh investment stateside; more mergers and acquisitions; and, yes, more dividend payments and stock buybacks to fatten investors’ wallets.