Quotes from the Investment Outlook Summit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top portfolio managers and strategists spoke at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York on Monday.

They discussed their expectations for 2010 across an array of markets.

Some highlights: Margaret Patel, senior portfolio manager at Evergreen Investments, doesn't expect the Federal Reserve to start increasing its benchmark federal funds rate soon: "The Fed told us they will keep it low and I believe them. ...The Fed does not want to get out of its comfort zone for a while."

Patel on health-care stocks: "That whole sector reflects all the negatives we know about, and that says to me there must be some opportunity there if we don't have draconian legislation or we have something that's a little better than the market expected."

Mary Miller, head of the fixed income division at T. Rowe Price, sees smaller gains for bonds in 2010: "It's been an extraordinary year for the credit markets. We've had an astonishing recovery in some markets and I'm going to go way out on a limb right now and say I don't think we can repeat that in 2010. Having said that, there's still some runway left in the credit markets."

Miller says T. Rowe is looking to Asia and South America for higher bond yields: "We're not in the camp where we're betting against the dollar from here. Having said that, we do see other opportunities around the world in international markets...put on more yield and to look at currencies that are strengthening."

Economist Henry Kaufman, president of Henry Kaufman & Co., on the dollar's decline: "There has been no dollar crisis. The retreat of the dollar has been gradual, it has been orderly and it has not had an impact on the securities markets."

Kaufman on gold's rapid ascent: "There are bubbles in commodities. There's probably, certainly a bubble in the gold market. ... When you have bubble in commodities, those markets relative to securities markets are small, (so) it doesn't take much of a shift into commodity-related areas to be a driving force."