Conference Set to Offer Wall Street Outlook
Probing the Market
By RAJIV VYAS
The Orange County Society of Investment Managers plans to probe how national and global trends could sway the stock market at its first economic forecast set for Jan. 31 in Newport Beach.
The forecast dinner is booked at the Four Seasons Hotel Newport Beach. The Orange County Society of Investment Managers, a professional group for money managers and other finance industry representatives, expects to hold forecast events every year after its inaugural event.
“We want to make this an event that people will look forward to every year,” said Krista Zipfel, president of OCSIM.
The group’s forecast differs from those of local universities in that it is geared toward investors, according to Russell Murdock, OCSIM board member and the past president.
Speakers at the event are set to be: Douglas Cliggott, managing director and the chief equity strategist of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.; Donald Straszheim, vice chairman of the Milken Institute and former chief economist at Merrill Lynch & Co.; and Gregory Valliere, managing director of the Washington Research Group.
The three investment experts are expected to talk about their one-year target for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq. They also plan to present their views on gold and oil prices.
The society is expecting some 200 attendees. Murdock said uncertainty in the economy and the stock market has sparked interest in the event.
“It is important to seek out experts who have a background not only as academics but as practitioners as well,” he said.
Next year, Murdock said he hopes the society can get the three speakers to defend their 2002 forecasts and also review what happened in the year.
“We will put them on a spot and say ‘OK, here’s what you said and how did it turn out,'” Zipfel said. “And we’ll then bring three new speakers to make predictions for the next year.”
OCSIM was started in 1983 by local investment professionals. In 1997, the society became an affiliate of the Charlottesville, Va.-based Association of Investment Management & Research, a nonprofit group of investment professionals with more than 50,000 members. In 2000, OCSIM became an AIMR society, or its local chapter.
NCR Ups Stake in Western Digital’s SageTree
NCR Corp. has increased its stake in Western Digital Corp.’s SageTree Inc. to “a substantial minority share,” the companies said. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.
As part of the investment, SageTree said it has entered into a pact with NCR’s Teradata unit in which Teradata will offer SageTree products and services.
In 2000, NCR invested $10 million in SageTree. In the past year, SageTree and Teradata have worked together to develop supply-chain software. Teradata offers database, customer relationship management and other business software.
Lake Forest-based Western Digital launched SageTree a few years ago as part of its bid to breakout internal units not directly tied to its disk drive business.
