Sal Geraci of Wealth Advisors, LLC told members of the Chattanooga Civitan Club on Friday afternoon that while markets generally perform the best in pre-election years, this year "the market could still give you good returns."
He told the club that currently inflation is only running at approximately two percent. He also said it was not predicted to go much higher over the next few years.
He said that job recovery continues in an upward slope since the most recent recession.
He described this slope as similar to the comeback after the 2001 and 2002 recession.
As for areas to watch, he said, "We should still see continued growth in the vehicle industry."
He also described the petroleum market as a "bubble" right now due to increased oil production from fracking.
Mr. Geraci said, "We are now, believe it or not, the largest producer of petroleum in the world. We now have estimated reserves larger than all OPEC productions put together."
He said, "Sooner or later I think the government will figure out that oil is important to the world economy."
He discussed North Dakota, saying the oil drilling there had created thousands of jobs. He said, "For every one drilling job created, there are five support jobs created."
Comparing the tax situation here to that of the rest of the world, he said, "Even though we all hate paying federal taxes, our tax burden is still relatively low compared to other countries."
Mr. Geraci said the greatest area of concern for the future is the federal debt. Currently, the federal debt percentage of the GDP continues to grow at an alarming rate.