Most investors and money managers, especially those whose portfolios are heavy on stocks and light on bonds, would rather forget about 2002.

Who can blame them? U.S. stock markets notched a third straight year of declines for the first time since the Great Depression. And the pain wasn’t limited to North America. Stock markets fell around the globe, most notably in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Money managers and stock market strategists say 2003 is likely to be the year that the dubious streak is broken. They caution, however, that any uptick will be gradual.

“The market is going to turn around this year, but not to the extent that we’d all like it to turn around,” said Linda Lundstrom Cook, who along with Marlis Gilbert owns Gilbert & Cook Inc., which manages about $100 million in investments for high-net-worth individuals. “I think we’ll see growth of 5 percent to 8 percent.”

Brian Belski, chief stock market strategist at Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, echoes that sentiment. Belski, however, thinks the Standard & Poor’s 500 index will rise even slower, at a 3 to 5 percent rate.

Though he admits that kind of growth isn’t anything to get excited about, it sure beats losing money.

“The picture looks rosier for 2003,” said Chris Cook, a certified public accountant and a chartered financial analyst at Cedar Rapids-based VMF Capital LLC, which has an office in Clive and manages about $500 million for institutions and individuals.

Closer to home, the picture could already be sunny.

One curious counter-trend to last year’s Dow Jones performance is what occurred Central Iowa’s nine publicly traded companies. Six of them watched their shares rise.

Much of the upward move came from insurance and financial services companies, most notably Principal Financial Group Inc. and FBL Financial Group Inc., whose share prices have climbed 29 percent and 21 percent, respectively, over the past 12 months.

Insurance companies, though stinging from losses in their investment portfolios, have been increasing their premium income. As a result, investors have bid up their stocks.

The Dow Jones has been on an uptick in current months, though there are risks looming for the year ahead that threaten to derail those gains.

The economy might not continue to improve. There are potentially troubling signs that consumer spending is starting to flag. Threats of war loom in the Middle East and there is unease on the Korean peninsula. Corporate earnings may not climb and no one knows what will happen with unemployment.

Past problems could return. The last 18 months have been a trying time for the U.S. economy. First it was recession. Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Who can forget the corporate scandals that rocked Wall Street and Main Street? Now there’s the issue of a possible war in Iraq, and the nuclear saber rattling on the Korean peninsula.      In retrospect, many money managers describe 2002 as a “year of the transition and turnaround,” as Belski put it in a note to clients earlier this year.

Earnings at many companies last year swung to positive from negative and profit growth is likely to continue this year, Belski and others believe.

“People are looking for reasons to be in the game now, rather than reasons to stay on the sidelines,” VMF’s Cook said.