If you’ve watched Fox News over the past few years, as many of us have, you know Rupert Murdoch’s TV crystal ball has some serious cracks in it, as reflected in repeated news alerts or forecasts of impending happenings that so far have failed to pan out. Chief among them:

* Hillary Clinton will seek the White House in 2004. Or if not, then definitely in 2008, or perhaps 2012.

* Homeowners are in hot water because the housing bubble is about to burst.

* Coalition forces could be close to discovering the hiding places of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, each of whom could be killed or captured shortly. Also, it looks like Al Qaeda and the Taliban are pretty much history.

* Interest rate increases should level off because they could hurt the economy. (On November 1, the Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to hike short-term rates for the 12th consecutive time since June 2004.)

So Fox’s latest prognosis – the possibility that Wall Street is about to hit an all-time high, ballyhooed several times as a recent promo for its Saturday lineup of business shows – is surely suspect. Certainly, the timing is abysmal, what with hurricanes Katrina and Rita, ballooning gas prices, and interest rate worries teaming up to drive stock prices lower.

But not every Fox business panelist shares the network’s buoyant market view. For example, one scrappy money manager, Jim Rogers of Rogers Holdings, is sticking to his forecast that the market will be a dog in the year ahead. He sees the elimination of the market’s salvation in recent years – nonstop fiscal and monetary stimulus – as the chief culprit.

But what about the stimulus from the government’s $200 billion package to revitalize the Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast? Mr. Rogers, a former sidekick of George Soros, acknowledges there will be regional stimulation along the Gulf, but he hastens to point out the hurricane will cause serious dislocations elsewhere – as in, among other things, it will be difficult and expensive to get cement in Chicago, lumber in Seattle, and glass in New York. Mr. Rogers also says, “The budget is crippled, as is the dollar.”

Jim Melcher of Balestra Capital, a New York money management firm with $140 million of assets that is up a market-beating 11% this year after fees, is also not in Fox’s bullish camp. Heavily hedged and net short (a bet stock prices will fall), he rates the market “fully valued, if not overvalued.”

There are significant economic problems the market is not discounting, he says. Especially worrisome, he adds, are record levels of household debt, including mortgage debt. With interest rates and energy costs rising and a probable increase in the rate of inflation, consumers are not in good condition to confront the financial shocks, he says. Noting mortgage companies are focused on sub-prime lending, he believes “a real jolt to the system” could be looming.

Pointing to skyrocketing federal spending, Mr. Melcher argues that “our fiscal policy is out of control.” It’s why he believes there’s a real potential that foreign investors may reverse course and pull back from America, which he says would cause stock and bond prices to plummet and interest rates to soar. Given his dreary outlook, he believes the market will work itself lower for the balance of the year, a trend he expects will spill over into next year.

A Wachovia Securities economist, Marc Vitner, is also hoisting cautionary flags for investors. He had been projecting a rise in short-term rates to 4.75% by early 2007; now he sees 5% by May. Citing a strengthening economy; low inventories; the spike in gas prices; shortages of such products as steel, cement, and roofing (especially needed to repair the hurricane damages); the advent of rental increases for the first time in five years, and the abundance of credit still readily available for all classes of home buyers, Mr. Vitner thinks the next few months will see a much higher rate of inflation. “The Fed clearly has more work to do, and I don’t see it stopping [rate hikes] for quite some time,” he says.

Likewise, bullish sentiment in the marketplace is rampant – which is usually a worrisome sign and invariably has proven to be a sure-fire signal that the market’s glory days could turn into gory days. Among the bullish signs, recent numbers show the individual investor (who is usually wrong), after a hiatus, is beginning to rush back into stocks. In recent weeks, the public has gobbled up more than $8 billion worth of equity mutual funds and in excess of $11 billion of exchange-traded funds. At the same time, mutual fund cash positions have plummeted to 3.9%, the lowest level in many years, suggesting institutional investors are gung-ho on stocks. What’s more, a recent Market Vane survey of investment advisors finds well over half of them, 68%, are bullish.

These negative market implications aside, every investor knows you can get bloodied listening to the bulls and bears. Maybe now we should also include the fox.