Jason Trennert is keen these days on keeping tabs on corporate cash hoards. Non-financial American companies currently have 5% of their total assets in cash, a figure not approached since the early 1960s.

Mr. Trennert, who is managing partner and chief investment strategist of Strategas Research Partners, thinks that fact alone will make for a very exciting year ahead. “There has never been an investment fad that has stopped on its own accord. Everything is pushed to its point of irrationality,” he said. “Like a friend of mine said: ‘Things are going to get stupid.'”

Which is all well for Mr. Trennert and his firm of 10 investment research specialists. Strategas has been around for less than a year, but the 38-year-old Mr. Trennert and his associates have come to know that the stupidity of others makes enticing opportunities for smart investors.

Mr. Trennert goes one step further. He enjoys telling clients: “In the history of the financial markets, arrogance has destroyed far more capital than stupidity.”

Unusually high percentages of cash on corporate balance sheets are partly the result of the regulatory environment that arose after the bursting of the Internet bubble, he said. Excessive fear followed excessive greed.

“Chief executives resorted to costcutting and concentrating on operating leverage instead of growing the top line,” Mr. Trennert said. “Now a lot of pressure will be brought to bear to use all that cash — or the explicit threat to use it for them.”

If this scenario recalls another decade, it’s the 1980s, and Mr. Trennert couldn’t be happier. He’s got a framed photograph of President Ronald Reagan in his office. Nearby is a framed issue of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, which profiled his meteoric rise in the world of investment research.

“I’m a true child of the ’80s, even down to the fact that I loved ‘Family Ties,'” he said, dressed in suspenders that would make Alex P. Keaton proud.

Indeed, in what could be a real-life remake of the movie “Wall Street,” which was released in 1987, Mr. Trennert said 2007 might look a lot like the first eight months of that year. “I wouldn’t worry about stocks until bond yields start rising,” he said of the possible similarities with the investment world of two decades ago.

Some of the best news for the sellside researchers at Strategas is that the S&P 500 is currently trading at 15 times price-to-earnings. They’re expecting a rise to 21 times. “Some 20 to 25% of the market is undervalued,” Mr. Trennert said.

His best bets for now: technology, health care, and energy. “Remember: Private equity players still have a lot of money to leverage,” Mr. Trennert said.

Is there room for a smart, independent research firm in today’s world, where most shops spend as much time investing money as they do crunching numbers and making recommendations? Mr. Trennert thinks so.

While studying for his M.B.A. at Wharton, he admits to getting swept up in the herd mentality and groupthink that permeates Ivy League business schools. “Everyone was out to impress everyone else, and working at a marquee firm after graduation was the only option.”

Mr. Trennert spent 15 years at International Strategy & Investment Group and noticed that as the dust settled after Wharton, the few classmates who didn’t end up at huge investment banks were now making waves in all parts of corporate America. And it was because of their smarts and hard work.

So it’s not surprising that the motto of his new firm, Strategas, is Bonitas, Probitas, Fides, which, loosely translated, is Goodness, Honesty, Trust. This is where Mr. Trennert lets down his guard and doesn’t stick to the tough-as-nails, greed-is-good mantra of another 1980s icon, Gordon Gekko.

“Jason’s research is the best in the business; thoughtful, contrarian, and extremely helpful in formulating my own investment strategies,” said the chief investment officer of Mr. Trennert’s alma mater, Georgetown University, Lawrence Kochard. “To top it off, Jason is one of the nicest guys on Wall Street.”