John Calamos's Quest for Growth

In an interview, John Calamos, CEO and founder of Chicago-based Calamos Asset Management, talked about the current stock valuation. According to Calamos, they're positive about the equities market. That's based on valuations -- and right now they're very compelling. Typically the market trades at about 53% of its future cash flows; today that number is about 43%. He said that this is the cheapest, relative to the rest of the market, that they've seen them in more than 20 years. The premium of growth stocks to value stocks is very compressed right now. Commodity prices are going up, and the devaluation of the US dollar will help support energy prices over the long term. If the economy recovers, energy demand will obviously go up. Flows into emerging markets make participation in individual countries a bit more volatile than they like.