Behind the Numbers, with Mark Balasa

“We always stay fully invested,” remarks The Alpha Group’s Mark Balasa as he explains why the group has the lowest cash allocation. Balasa says the group feels optimistic about the stock market heading into the New Year and is allocating equities across a broad spectrum, including large and small caps, value, growth, and both in U.S. and international markets “We invest in most of the world equity markets,” he notes. As for an overweight, the group is modestly overweighting small company stocks. Balasa believes the trend of continued foreign equity strength will carry on into the next quarter and suggests international investments as a way to succeed financially in 2007. “Interest rate environments are behind them and corporate growth and profit growth seems to be good there,” he notes. Balasa points to good underlying economic data and fair market valuations as other trends that are presently positive for the economy.