Meet the Street: The Shape of the Economy to Come

Forget letters -- the shape of this economy is best described in terms of dishes, as in saucers and soup bowls.

At least that's the viewpoint of John Waterman, chief investment officer for Rittenhouse Equities, a division of Nuveen Investments. Waterman, who recently held a press conference to lay out his predictions for 2002, thinks the current cycle more closely resembles a soup bowl, in which a gradual economic slowdown bottoms in the fourth quarter and is followed by a slow recovery.

Here Waterman describes in detail his view of the economy and where he's putting his company's money these days. ...