There's no shortage of opinions at the Money Show:

Ron Muhlenkamp stayed away from the faddish high-tech stocks of the late 1990s. Instead, he loaded up on homebuilders, insurers, and truckers. His $539 million namesake fund ended 2001 with a one-year return of 9.33 percent, compared with the S&P 500's 11.81 percent loss. At year-end, his top holdings were homebuilder NVR and independent energy producer Calpine. "It never occurred to me the public would buy stocks without checking the prices," he says. Today, Muhlenkamp thinks the economy has suffered a "normal cyclical recession" and favors sectors such as energy, auto suppliers, and financial services.

"I think there's a lot of leverage in earnings going forward," says Ned Riley, chief strategist for State Street Global Advisors. He believes the economy's fundamentals are strong but cautions that worries about corporate balance sheets will "hang heavy with us for quite a while." Riley says that given the low expectations, the market could surprise this year. And, in quite a change of heart for corporate America, Riley adds: "I think companies are going to go back to paying dividends."

Don't believe a word of it, cautions Bernie Schaeffer, a technical analyst who tracks investor sentiment to determine the direction of the market. "We are in the ugliest bear market from a technical standpoint since the 1970s," says Schaeffer, who recommends buying gold funds and short-selling some stocks. "You could have a market environment with a recovering economy where the market doesn't respond," he says.