Stock Market Heads Toward 10,000 Mark

The recent upward trend of the stock market has led investment experts to believe that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon pass the 10,000 mark  for the first time in a year.

Craig Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jeffries & Co., and Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager at Permanent Portfolio Funds, believe it will happen sooner rather than later.

“I think we’ll see [10,000] before the end of the year,” Cuggino told CNBC.  “We’re going to continue to see momentum in earnings growth in the third and fourth quarters and that’s going to propel stocks further.”

Cuggino said the markets may be in for a wild ride but they have come a long way in 2009, but he believes economic trends are “ones of growth” and will rally the markets.

Peckham believes the Dow will reach 10,000 in a few weeks.

“My bigger question is that when we will see earnings results in the third quarter — the bar has been raised pretty dramatically and the expectation is for a much more significant improvement in the topline from corporate America,” Peckham said.  “So it’s imperative that we have a real good sense of where expectations lie going into the third quarter, relative to stock prices.”

The harder question is when we will see the buoyant stock market and recuperating earnings affect the labor market.  This is the real indication of recovery.