What do you do when worse case is another, even deeper recession and best case is muddle through with some losses? Keep on muddling?
Not long ago, David Kotok firmly believed that the S&P 500 index could climb 50% over the next four years, taking it to 3,000 by 2020. Recently however, the founder of money manager Cumberland Advisors has become less optimistic.
Global markets, Kotok believes, face many headwinds, from rising U.S. interest rates to slowing growth in China to bad debt on European bank balance sheets. The terror attacks in Paris, in his view, could be a glimpse of global instability ahead, and the recent collapse of the high-yield bond market might be an early warning sign.
For 2016, Kotok sees the best risk/return trade-off in U.S. stocks, particularly the technology, utilities and health-care sectors, and tax-free municipal bonds. He has inched back into the energy sector. Kotok uses exchange-traded funds, rather than individual equities, for their tax-efficiency and diversification.
Kotok founded his Sarasota, Fla.-based firm in 1973 and manages about $2.4 billion. Thanks to what is known as Camp Kotok, however, he punches above his AUM. Every August the money manager hosts an invitation-only gathering for financial luminaries at a fishing lodge in Maine. Attendees include top economists, former Federal Reserve officials and money managers – it’s been described as a mini Davos with fishing rods instead of skis.
Barrons.com recently caught up with Kotok to discuss his outlook for stocks, Fed policy, oil prices and why he sees the unloved natural gas industry as a bargain. Excerpts from our conversation are below. More:
.barrons.com/articles/top-etf-picks-for-2016-according-to-david-kotok.
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