HardAssetsInvestor

Mike Norman, anchor, HardAssetsInvestor.com (Norman): Hello everybody, and welcome to HardAssetsInvestor.com. I’m Mike Norman, your host. Today my guest is Philip Silverman. He’s the managing partner of Kingsview Management; very familiar to the hard assets space commodities. Philip, thanks very much for joining us on the show. I appreciate it.

Philip Silverman, managing partner, Kingsview Management (Silverman): Thank you for having me.

Norman: Let’s take a broader outlook right now. What is your outlook? The year's off to somewhat of a flat start, I guess. What is the outlook that you have for 2010?

Silverman: Well, our outlook is for subtrend growth. You know, we’ve had a bounce off the bottom in economic growth, as well as the markets. But we don’t think that that has very much legs. Not in any way calling for a collapse, but not growth rates that we would have been accustomed to in the last couple of decades.

Norman: No, we had a growth rate in the last reading … or for all of 2009, actually, it was almost a 6 percent, a 5.7 percent growth rate. That’s incredibly strong. What you're saying is that won't be sustained?

Silverman: We do not believe that will be sustained. You know, there was a lot of bounce-back from the crisis, a lot of inventory rebuilding. But to think that coming out of this crisis we’ll be able to sustain even a normal trend growth is a very optimistic outlook and one that I don’t think we can necessarily bet our money on.

Norman: Now, a 2 percent growth rate; how does that work out for equities, for commodities? How do you see that? Is it supportive? Is it indicative of more sideways price action?

Silverman: I think certainly a general sideways price action is something we’re expecting. In stocks, it’s going to be a stock-picker’s market. Those companies that are able to thrive, have good products, manage their balance sheets very well and compete effectively in the marketplace are going to do well; value stocks will be able to do well.

But as a whole, I wouldn’t bet on very large advances any time in the near future. You know, we’ve made a large bounce off the bottom. A lot of money was reallocated into equities. And it’s going to be a tough time to see the market go up significantly. Like I said, I’m not looking for the bottom to fall out here, but we think you're going to see a lot of sideways action.