The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) have pulled back from their all-time highs, with the Dow snapping its four-day winning streak. Citi US equity strategist Drew Pettit joins Market Domination Overtime to discuss the latest movement and what investors can expect in the second half of the year.
Pettit believes the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut is behind the most recent market action. He explains, “I think the Fed, and honestly heading into the Fed decision, interest rates across the curve coming down gave people more confidence to look through some potential softness in the labor market, maybe a little bit of softness in earnings macro data, even the housing data today, out the other side to say, ‘Hey, the Fed isn’t going to be as far behind the curve. That’s OK. I can start positioning for the recovery.’ And we’ve seen not just the secular stories work, but we’ve seen some of the cyclical stories start to work, at least since the mid-July interim peak.”
As the third quarter earnings season looms ahead, he believes the market has not reached its peak. He notes that growth stocks can “probably survive any type of weakness,” while cyclicals will finally get a boost from falling interest rates. Pettit adds, “We actually think we’re on an upswing for some of the parts of the market that really haven’t gotten much love over the past couple of years.”
While tech stocks have gotten a lot of love over the last year, he expects some pressure ahead: “The growth side of the market has had really strong growth. So it becomes the problem of, let’s call it, the law of large numbers. You’re growing really fast. It’s hard to keep that up forever. But when growth stocks see their sales decelerate, there’s been points in the past where that has actually pressured their earnings.” However, he believes many Tech players will be able to handle topline deceleration.
Thus, Pettit encourages investors to be cautious with tech moving forward. He encourages them instead to get into overlooked areas of the market like cyclicals, consumer goods (XLP, XLY), and financials (XLF).
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime.
This post was written by Melanie Riehl
