“
‘I suspect the market will be lower a year from today. But I don’t have to make that guess now. This is not going to end well.’
”
— Leon Cooperman, Omega Family Office
That’s self-described “fully invested bear” Leon Cooperman, who told CNBC on Friday that given a coming rise in taxes, inflation and a “reasonably richly appraised market,” he has “an eye on the exit.”
Cooperman, the chair of the Omega Family Office, added that “nobody, myself included, knows when this is going to end. We just watch the things that would normally indicate an end.”
Stocks were weaker Friday, on track for a mixed weekly performance despite a hectic week of corporate results that featured blowout results for some of the world’s largest tech-related companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.67%
was down more than 200 points, dragging the blue-chip gauge lower for the week. The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.60%
was down 0.7% for the session, while the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.44%
was down 0.5%.
Cooperman warned that the pace of market gains since bottoming out in March 2020 following the pandemic-induced bear market plunge can’t continue indefinitely.
“I think we should recognize we’re pulling demand forward and that the longer-term outlook is not particularly favorable, in my view,” he said. Cooperman said he expects Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has described a recent pickup in price pressures as “transitory,” will ultimately be surprised by inflation, forcing the central bank to signal action before the end of 2022.
