Dow 38,820?

Weary investors, take heart. Jeffrey A. Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac is predicting good times ahead. Bloomberg reports that Hirsch is predicting “[t]he Dow Jones Industrial Average will surge to 38,820 in an eight-year ‘super boom’ beginning in 2017.” Hirsch believes that the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, inflation, and energy or biotech booms will drive the rally. Predicting future market levels hasn’t historically been an easy thing – back in 2000, James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett predicted the Dow would hit 36,000 by 2005 in a best-selling book. They were a little bit wrong. The Dow opens this morning at 10,812. [%comments]