Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s a pleasure to be with you tonight. As you can see from this sign, I’m advising all of you to blow your own horn, when warranted. I’ll explain more about that later.

For those of you who weren’t at last year’s awards dinner, let me explain that I’m the guy who rang the school bell and offered an apt piece of Wall Street wisdom: "They don’t ring a bell at market tops."

You may recall that I put up a slide showing the sharp divergence between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq, which you see here. This dichotomy, I told you, could not continue much longer. And it didn’t.

We at Barron’s got a lot of credit, or should I say blame, for pricking that Internet bubble with our now famous "Burn Rate" cover, which ran just about a year ago. We pointed out something that Wall Street was choosing to ignore: Namely, that companies cannot long survive without profits. And we correctly predicted that dozens of Internet companies would go belly up, dragging the Nasdaq and the economy down with them.

The Dow, we argued, held better value. I suggested to you that a lot of the companies you represent were not being given their due. As you can see from this slide, our prediction proved to be on the mark. The Dow stocks have held up a lot better than the Nasdaq stocks in the market rout of the past year.

So what have I done for you lately? We’ll I’m happy to report that it looks like we’re getting awfully near a market bottom. I’m not saying that stocks can’t fall futher. But judging by at least one important Barron’s barometer, there are some good values to be had in this market. A year ago, I had writers streaming into my office with proposals to write about companies that were overvalued and headed for trouble. Today, it’s the opposite situation. We find some compelling bargains out there.

But that’s not the only reason to think the worst is over. Right now, the Dow is trading at about 18 times earnings. Over the past seven decades, the Dow has traded at about 15 times earnings. It’s our opinion that fair value today could be 16 or 17 or maybe even 18 times earnings, in part because demand for stocks has increased markedly in recent decades as more individual investors have begun buying stocks, either directly or through mutual funds. We don’t expect that to change.

It’s true that companies have been cutting their earnings estimates lately, but that’s likely to subside by this year’s third quarter. As many of you know first hand, companies this time around have not been shy about cutting costs, and painful as that may be, it will help earnings recover.

Will we get back to 30%-plus annual gains on the Dow and 86% annual gains on the Nasdaq? I doubt it. I think we’ll be lucky to get 10% annual gains in stocks. But sensible people shouldn’t expect more. After all, 10% has been about the typical stock gain for most of the past century.

If average investors have learned any lesson in this latest market tumble, it’s not to avoid stocks altogether. The lesson is to invest in stocks in a balanced way. Look for stocks that pay dividends. Buy stocks as if you were buying a business, not as if you were gambling in Las Vegas.

I think this change will redound to the benefit of many of the people in this room, who represent good companies with good growth prospects, and good management. Before closing, let me offer one word of caution.

To justify a price-to-earnings ratio of 30, which is something we all aspire to, you must produce profit gains of at least 13% to 15%, year in and year out. But the fact is, steady gains in that range are a feat that very few companies have managed to accomplish over the long haul.

So don’t overpromise. Companies that can produce 13% to 15% profit growth over time, will find themselves in the elite. I encourage you to do everything in your power to help your company achieve that goal. And if you think it’s is attainable, don’t be afraid to let investors know. (last slide, repeat of first)

And let me close with that thought: Don’t be afraid to blow your own horn.

Thank you.