A top investment adviser said he was “optimistic” that financial markets might have found a bottom after a week of positive movement following one of the most dramatic sell-offs in history.
In an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box Friday morning, Omega Advisors CEO Leon “Lee” Cooperman pointed to encouraging data that suggests panic selling might have reached its apex last week.
“Call me an uninformed optimist,” Cooperman said. “If I’m right on the virus call, if I’m right, and that’s the big ‘if.’ … I think the market at the recent low … was close enough to the bottom to be called the bottom. If the economic shutdown goes beyond April into the third quarter, I would be less optimistic.”
Cooperman said the downturn was only partially related to the coronavirus pandemic, citing outstanding issues with the oil and financial markets. In late February, the S&P 500 reached an all-time low of 2191.86 after losing close to 35% of its value in just over two weeks time.
“This is a combination of a financial crisis, oil price collapse, and of course, the coronavirus, which has caused a broad-scale shutdown of the economy, and this occurred at a time when the stock market was expensive by any historical standard,” Cooperman said.
Cooperman said his investment group was looking to add positions in a number of blue-chip companies such as Facebook, Adobe, and Amazon. He claimed that although the death toll remained a stark reminder of the widespread effect of the disease, its effect on markets has been more pronounced.
“While the loss of any human life is tragic, the coronavirus has had much more serious impact on business activity than on human life thus far,” Cooperman added.
