Managing Your Money : INVESTING : Naming Names : Successful portfolio managers recommend some favorite stocks

Interest rates remain stalled at or near their post World War II lows. The global economy remains somnolent. A glut of commercial real estate may take years to shrink. What’s a long-term investor to do?

Look to the stock market. But carefully. Very carefully.

Although stock prices have soared over the last decade, many investment experts believe that they will continue to rise over the next three to five years.

The reason most often cited is a belief that inflation and interest rates will remain low, forcing investors to look beyond money market funds, Treasury securities and certificates of deposit for healthy earnings.

Another potent reason is an expected improvement in the U.S. and global economies. When it occurs, the thinking goes, companies that have pared themselves to weather the current storm should be in fine shape to take advantage of clear skies.

“Right now, a lot of people are fleeing to the stock market for better returns, so the rising prices are partly the result of the influx of money,” says Robert S. Salomon Jr., director of asset management at Salomon Bros. “But by next year, rising corporate profits and dividends should begin to take over as the primary impetus.”

One way to play this is to buy a broadly diversified mutual fund, or even an index fund, which enables you to buy pretty much the whole market.

But you can also pick individual stocks. To help you, we had eight successful portfolio managers name names.