No End in Sight for Stock Market Turmoil: Strategist
Whether it's the pushy paparazzi chasing movie stars, endless travel for pro athletes or baseless malpractice lawsuits against top doctors, every racket seems to have its shortcomings; a so-called cost of doing business. And the investment business is no exception, where gripes about turmoil and inexplicable price swings are often met coldly with "deal with it."
So if the European debt crisis has muddled your plans and the threat of recession has deferred your riches, don't go crying to John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds.
"If you want to be in it for the long-term you just have to put up with the volatility," Manley says in the attached clip, inferring what should be obvious to all investors; if it was easy we'd all be rich.
But of course it's not, even though Manley has a way of making it sound that way, as he draws on over 30 years of Wall Street wisdom to keep you from bailing out. One piece of advice he offers is to separate what you can and can't know about the future when trying to make decisions.
For example, Manley is certain that things are volatile, he knows that valuations are closer to the low-end than the high end, and is positive that it feels unpleasant to invest. "It's obviously not a top but we can't know if it is a bottom," he says.
More specifically, if Europe is the preeminent source of investor angst right now, in a game that hates uncertainty more than anything, then perhaps it's time to worry about something else. "We know everything about Europe's problems except how to fix them," Manley quips.
Domestically he's not calling for a recession because consumers are still spending. But he advises laying off retail stocks until after Christmas.
Additionally, if you're expecting a big drop in crude oil or big solutions from the Super Committee, you might be disappointed. Manley's thinking on the latter being that the painful measures needed to right the country's fiscal ship will only be taken when we reach a point where it hurts less to do it then not to.
