Stocks rallied on Wednesday to push the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to records. The session solidified Wall Street’s strong start to September.
Three experts discuss what’s next.
Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, says the recession has come and gone.
“Economic indicators, obviously it’s off a low base but it’s the strongest three months we’ve seen since at least 1999. So, I think, the recession that started in February is over for all intents and purposes. What happens going forward is another story … The kind of action we’re seeing is early recovery type of action.”
Anastasia Amoroso, head of cross-asset thematic strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank, sees value in the financials.
“I think financials is a really interesting trade at the moment because one thing that has changed for financials over the last couple of weeks is the yield curve. The yield curve has steepened out meaningfully and we actually think there’s more to that trend to go for the rest of the year and we could see higher nominal yields but not really much in terms of inflation so that would be quite supportive for financials.”
Bill Nygren, portfolio manager at the Oakmark Fund, is digging around for cheaper stocks.
“There’s a lot of value in the market today and, even though the S&P is up say 50% over the past four years, it’s largely been concentrated in technology companies and the PE spread has gotten enormous between the highest price stocks and the lowest price reminiscent of where things were in 1999. We think both industrials and consumer non-durables, that they’re cheap stocks along with banks and some other special situations. A lot of those stocks are actually at lower PEs today than they were four years ago.”
