(Mediaite) Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman said Tuesday he had faith in the economy, and advised going heavy on the stock market despite volatility — for now.
“There’s nothing overvalued in today’s interest rate environment except the bonds,” the Omega Family Office chairman said in an interview on CNBC. With respect to tech stocks, which he said he took a special interest in, he argued, “When you look at Google, you look at Facebook, you look at Microsoft, you look at Amazon — if you believe the economy’s going to grow and interest rates are going to stay where they are, they’re not overvalued.
He said he had “no trouble findings things I want to own” but added a caveat, saying that fiscal policy had distorted market conditions. Though he said pullbacks were “the rule of the day” in bull markets, he said Monday’s drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average of more than 700 points — or 2.1 percent — was indicative of a market structure that had been “destroyed.”
“I have an eye on the exit because I think that monetary policy, or fiscal policy, have pulled demand policy, and this game, this party, where it ends — is not going to end well,” Cooperman said. “The reason you see the kind of action you saw yesterday is the market structure’s been destroyed.”
Prodded by host Scott Wapner to say what would prompt him to reduce his exposure to the market, Cooperman replied, “It would be Fed speak, it would be inflation, it would be the overall performance of the economy. It would be gold and bitcoin, which I think represents speculative fever. It would be the stock market itself. In bull markets, 4 to 7 percent pullbacks are the rule of the day, so what you saw yesterday just happened a little more quickly.
“I do have concerns about the long-term,” he added. “We’re just printing too much debt in this country, and everybody says the government can’t afford to let the interest rates to rise.”
