Spika Predicts More Woes for Consumers

MAITLAND, Fla. (TheStreet) -- David Spika, co-manager of the Timothy Plan Large/Mid Cap Value Fund (TLVAX Quote), says consumers will continue to struggle as they trim debt and battle rising unemployment.

The fund, which garners four stars from Morningstar(MORN Quote), has risen 22% this year. It has returned an average of 4.6% annually during the past five years, better than 97% of its Morningstar rivals.

Welcome to TheStreet.com's Fund Manager Five Spot, where America's top mutual fund managers share their investment views in five fast and furious questions.

Are you a bull or bear?

Spika: We are cautiously optimistic about 2010. Cautious because the 60% rally off the bottom has been led by high-beta, lower-quality companies that have questionable earnings-growth potential. We recognize that a sustainable market rally must be led by high-quality, fundamentally sound firms with visible earnings growth. We need to see a rotation into such firms in order to become fully bullish.

However, we do think earnings growth as a whole will be much stronger in 2010 as a result of the operating leverage created by the extreme cost cutting in 2009, and because multinational firms will benefit from stronger foreign growth and the weak dollar.

What is your top stock pick?

Spika: BlackRock(BLK Quote) is our favorite pick. As a result of the recently announced purchase of Barclays Global Investors (BGI), BlackRock will now be the largest institutional asset management firm in the world. BlackRock proved during the market downturn that it's a very good risk manager, and is positioned to take market share from other asset managers whether demand for investment assets improves or not.