11 Bold Predictions for the Year Ahead

Standard & Poor's boots out four constituents of its flagship S&P 500 Index, and they go on to record an average 35% gain for the year. The gatekeeper for the index that is tracked by more than $1 trillion in funds kicks out spice maker McCormick (MKC Quote), chipmaker Power-One (PWER Quote), steel maker Allegheny Technologies (ATI Quote) and housewares maker Tupperware (TUP Quote) due to their market capitalizations below $1 billion and diminishing representation of their industries.

Showing no remorse for their disastrous 2002 decisions to kick McDermott International (MDR Quote) out of the index at $4.50 in August 2003 (it closed the year at around $12) and to kick AMR (AMR Quote) out of the index at $1.50 in March (it closed the year around $13), the indexers add high-flying Web retailers Amazon.com (AMZN Quote) and InterActiveCorp (IACI Quote), biotech Gilead Sciences (GILD Quote) and homebuilder Lennar (LEN Quote). The new stocks decline 15% on average in 2004.

Small-cap oil and gas drillers become the hot sector for momentum traders in the first three quarters of the year. The move is driven in part by higher demand from the strengthening economy, but it's exacerbated by heavy merger activity that puts a rising bid under the stocks.

Shares of micro-cap wildcatters such as TransGlobe Energy (TGA Quote), Toreador Resources (TRGL Quote) and Abraxas Petroleum (ABP Quote) and small oil-services providers like Omni Energy Services (OMNI Quote) double and triple in price.

Rich-content Internet advertising emerges as the hot tech trend of the year, attracting scads of venture capital to start-ups and momentum money to current public plays. DoubleClick (DCLK Quote), the doyen of the group, advances 50% during the year but finds itself eclipsed by specialist direct and interactive marketers Modem Media (MMPT Quote), Traffix (TRFX Quote) and aQuantive (AQNT Quote), as well as by the IPO of the new Web advertising leader, Google.

International broadband Internet suppliers such as NTL (NTLI Quote) and UnitedGlobalCom (UCOMA Quote) are seen as ways to play the trend, as their high-speed networks provide the platform for improved product sales.