2016 Gradient Elite Advisor Forum Wrap-Up

October 14, 2016 | Print View

Last week Gradient Investments hosted our 3rd annual Elite Advisor Forum in Minneapolis. Over 60 of our top advisors attended, anxious to hear from over a dozen speakers with topics ranging from practice management to investment markets. Our featured speakers included some key Wall Street strategists with their best insights. Here we highlight the thoughts and outlooks of three of our featured speakers:

Brian Belski, Chief Investment Strategist, BMO Capital Markets

Near-term stock price momentum pressure is a result of stubbornly dovish Federal Reserve, continued Eurozone strife and commodity/emerging market uncertainty
Forecasting a longer term breakout in the U.S. bull market, continuing the largest stealth market in decades.
Predicting that the Federal Reserve will raise rates at their mid-December meeting.
Favor North American dividend paying stocks over other asset classes.
Overweight financials (especially the only 5 Canadian banks), technology, consumer discretionary, industrials and telecomm sectors. Avoid utilities.
Expecting major leadership changes with U.S. presidential & congressional elections based on the U.K. voters’ decision to leave the European Union (Brexit).

Sam Stovall, Managing Director S&P Global Market Intelligence

Continuation of U.S. bull market to all time highs in 2017. Over the last 70 years, bull markets end with a big final year (a bang) which we have not yet seen
Markets driven by corporate earnings, and 14% consensus estimate growth for 2017 is likely understated by 3 percentage points.
Energy will continue to provide a tailwind to corporate profits in 2017
Volatility is likely to rise based on historical data
Historically, market pullbacks of 5-10% have taken just 2 months on average to recover, while corrections of 10-20% have taken on average 4 months to recover
The S&P 500’s price return July 31 through October 31 has typically been a fairly reliable indicator of presidential election results. Thus, if the S&P ends over 2,173.60, Clinton should win and if it’s under 2,173.60, Trump should win.

Tushar Yadava, Blackrock iShares

Positive on quality (stocks & bonds) and especially dividend paying stocks globally
Recommends gold for diversification (5-10% allocation)
Encouraged by Asian emerging markets, especially their debt markets
Neutral on the broad U.S. and Japanese stock markets
Negative on Europe, especially banks there; believes the European Union will fall
Pointed to historically higher volatility in the S&P 500 in the weeks leading up to a presidential election and especially in the 60 days following the election

Although the U.S. stock market could display some near term volatility, according to these experts, 2017 is setting up to have another good year.