Stocks Could Move Higher in Coming Weeks, Analyst Says

Traders and Specialists work the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange on the first trading day in October Monday, Oct. 2, 2006. Stocks closed lower for the second straight session after the Dow Jones industrial average flirted briefly early in the day with its all-time high close. (AP Photo/David Karp)

David Karp

Frederic Dickson, chief market strategist for D.A. Davison, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” that he expects stocks to move higher in the next few weeks.

“Nobody is prepared for a break on the upside,” Dickson said Monday. “We’re not looking for a big one, but I think we’ll see prices drift higher.”

He said analysts have cut earnings estimates “fairly aggressively” but noted that U.S. industry “usually has a way of beating estimates by a penny or two” and that will give the market a “little bit of a lift coming out of earnings season in a couple of weeks.”

But he warned that an “escalation of the problem in the Middle East” could drive the market down.

Zachary Karabell, chief economist for Fred Alger Management, said investors should consider the global economy – not just the U.S. numbers.

He said weak manufacturing in the U.S. doesn’t necessarily mean a similar performance elsewhere in the world.