A Wall Street strategy chief tells investors to not base decisions on the election — and to invest in this market theme instead
- Brian Belski, BMO chief investment strategist, told CNBC that investors should not base their investment decisions on politics, just a week away from the election.
- Instead, Belski said investors should seek out "really great companies" and invest in growth.
- Growth companies will outperform when the market is coming out of a bear market and growth is scarce, he said.
BMO's Brian Belski told CNBC on Monday that investors should not make decisions based on political events, as markets slipped yesterday just a week away from the election.
"Investors should not, I repeat, should not be basing their investment decisions on politics, period," the chief investment strategist said.
Instead, Belski said to find growth companies and buy those.
"There's this huge debate on a daily basis on what you should be buying — growth versus value, versus cyclical, versus small caps, versus large cap — how about just buying really great companies?" said Belski.
He added that the current stock market and economy in the US are in "recovery mode," and growth companies do well coming out of a recession and bear market.
"When growth is scarce, growth outperforms," the strategy chief said.
Many large secular growth companies including Apple and Amazon report third-quarter earnings this week. Belski said these big-tech names are important, but investors shouldn't downplay smaller tech companies like PayPal and Nvidia. He said these two names are transitioning from structural growth companies into secular growth companies.
BMO is holding its year-end price target of 3,650 for the S&P 500, roughly a 7% gain from the index's close on Monday. Belksi said regardless of who wins the election, the US will pass a stimulus bill after November 3, and that will give stocks a boost.