ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170027
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
Jim Morgan remembers that the Dow Jones stood right at 1000 when he entered the brokerage business in January 1972. It fell almost immediately to about 600 points and stuck there for 18 or 20 months.
Those were the days when Morgan said he wondered if he was in the right business.
Morgan, president of Interstate/Johnson Lane was in Roanoke Wednesday for the opening of the Charlotte, N.C., stock broker's new Roanoke office at 501 S. Jefferson St.
With the Dow Jones industrial stock index at 6020 Wednesday, Morgan said that "time is the great prover of the validity of the market."
Morgan, who has been president of the company since late 1990, doesn't think this is the end of the market's ride. Because inflation is low and corporate earnings are high, he explained, the market is priced at its approximate value.
But some stocks are overvalued and some are being traded under their potential, he said. The trick is to pick those with room to grow.
A self-described "stockaholic," Morgan said he "slightly reformed" after winning a year-long stock picking contest in Smart Money magazine a year ago. He was fortunate that his career was also his hobby, but his administrative duties mean that "the passion for stock is still there, but the time to execute that passion is not there."
Some sectors appear better than others for stock-pickers, however. Consumer-oriented and health care companies are promising, he said. Some technology stocks have potential "if you don't mind walking in gold mines and mine fields. The nuggets are there, but you have to watch where you step." Manufacturing stocks also have promise if investors get over their fear that the economy will falter.
Morgan believes that the market has already built in the assumption that voters will re-elect President Bill Clinton and return Republican majorities to both the Senate and House. A deviation of either expectation, he said, "will be a near-term negative."
The Roanoke office was the company's second in Virginia, the first being in Richmond, from its base in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB