Former market expert Charles Clough from Merrill Lynch: The current stock market is different from the dot-com bubble period, and still has room for growth.

Although the U.S. stock market has experienced strong gains this year, there are still many people choosing to be bearish, among them the most famous being former Chief Market Strategist of J.P. Morgan, Marko Kolanovic. Considered as the "best contrarian indicator for the U.S. stock market" and having perfectly avoided the bull market for over a year, Marko Kolanovic leaving J.P. Morgan after nearly twenty years reminds many traders, bankers, and analysts of Charles Clough, the former Chief Investment Strategist at Merrill Lynch who resigned almost twenty-five years ago. At the end of August 1999, Charles Clough, the most firmly bearish Chief Investment Strategist on Wall Street at the time, resigned from Merrill Lynch. Although his views were once highly respected, his predictions for the U.S. stock market were completely wrong, maintaining a pessimistic attitude even as the stock market continued to rise. However, just a few months after Charles Clough's resignation, the dot-com bubble burst. And coincidentally, Marko Kolanovic also misjudged the trend during the recent years of soaring U.S. stock market. However, Charles Clough states that today's market is completely different from the late 20th century era. Currently managing the hedge fund Clough Capital Partners L.P., Charles Clough believes that the cash flow generated by U.S. companies is enough to prove that the continuously rising stock prices are reasonable, the economy is performing well, and inflation rates and interest rates are expected to decrease. In his view, there is still significant room for the stock market to rise. When interviewed, Charles Clough stated that comparing the current stock market to the dot-com bubble, one can see that "the differences between the two are far more important than the similarities." "The cash-generating capacity and scale of these companies indicate that they will exist for a long time and continue to maintain very high profitability."