- With tightened policy, tech stocks won't outperform markets as easily, "Big Short" investor Steve Eisman said.
- Instead, a paradigm shift towards green energy and infrastructure will probably occur.
The stock market playbook over the last 10 years of investing in technology and "hyper growth" companies with no earnings may soon be a thing of the past, Neuberger Berman's Steve Eisman said.
Assuming the Federal Reserve keeps benchmark rates higher for longer, tech stocks will no longer beat markets reliably — and the focus might instead shift towards "greenification," industrial onshoring and infrastructure, he said in a CNBC interview on Monday.
"There still will be tech stocks to invest in. But I think the days of investing in companies that have no earnings or have multiples of 200 times will be gone," said Eisman, best-known for his prediction of the mid-2000s housing crash on which "The Big Short" is based.
In his view, if interest rates continue to climb, investors will be less willing to take financial risks, as they did during the previous tech rally.
Still, Eisman thinks investors should be more selective about tech stocks rather than giving them up entirely.
Meanwhile, his firm has also turned its focus onto bond-buying, especially US Treasurys.
"Just risk-free Treasurys at 4.8% is a nice place to be," he said. "Look, clients have different objectives. There's no shame in putting some of your clients' money in 4.8%."
Pressed on why he wasn't investing in 10-year term bonds in the face of a possible recession, Eisman indicated that it wasn't easy to predict the future economy.
"In this world, two years is an awfully long time," he said. "You have guests come on, who say it's going to be a recession, and they come on, they say they're not sure. You have other folks say it's not going to be a recession. Then they say they're not sure. I mean, it's a very, very complicated time."