Investor Survey: What's Happening In the Markets

Company Name Value Expectations

Money managers are always looking for an advantage to help them better understand the market and get an edge in their stock selection process. The Applied Finance Group's (AFG's) Market Forecast Project (MFP) has served that purpose for over 400 investment professionals that participate, and it continues to grow. In our 14th issue of the MFP we have identified the favorite long and short equity ideas from participants as well as their thoughts on other key topics affecting the economy and the markets.

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This month's survey contains questions on topics such as:

"? Will Ford outperform Apple over the next 2 years?

"? Is the funding and expenditure crisis for state and local governments properly recognized by the investment markets?

"? Do you believe the recently passed financial reform regulations will slow credit growth?

"? What are the drivers of the recent heat-up in M&A activity in the past few weeks?

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Click Here to sign up to participate in The Market Forecast Project! It's fast and free to join!

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Investors In AFG Survey Predicted Rise In Gold Prices "â?? Market Forecast Project

With Gold prices reaching record (nominal) highs this week, we wanted to provide our readers with a look at how professional investors have been predicting movements in gold prices over the last year from our professional investor sentiment poll (Market Forecast Project). For the last 6-8 months gold price movements have been highly correlated with predictions from our investor poll. The goal of the Market Forecast Project is to take a large and diverse group of investment professionals and poll them on timely topics related to economics, government policy and market related questions and then provide the poll results to those who participate. In many cases the predictions from our poll have been extremely accurate in predicting future events in the market and provide those who participate with a look into the minds of hundreds of other investment pros looking to extract the "wisdom of the crowds"? to help them anticipate market events and provide an edge in their portfolio construction process.

If you are an investment professional or an individual investor who actively follows the market, please join us for next month's MFP! It's fast and free to join and you will be the first to receive the results every month.

The chart below looks at the predictions of the investors who participated in our investor polls from October of 2009 to present, as well as the related average monthly gold prices. In the last 3 months bullishness on gold prices has gradually increased from 58% in July 2010 to 63% of investors who think the price of gold would rise. Over the same time period the average monthly price of gold has risen from around $1,190 to $1,255.

Looking from more of a long-term perspective, over the last year the average percentage of investors who have been bullish on gold prices has been 65% and over the same time-frame the price of gold has risen from around $1,043 to $1,255. If you are a professional investor and would like to be among the first to receive these insights every month, join us for next month's Market Forecast Project (Free to Subscribe).