December's jobs report added another piece to the inflation puzzle for the Federal Reserve. With many moving parts, including 2023's job growth, it's becoming harder for Wall Street to truly know how the Fed will decide its next monetary policy move.

PNC Asset Management Chief Investment Strategist Marc Dizard joins Yahoo Finance to give investors insight into managing a portfolio during times of uncertainty and how the timing of the Fed's interest rate decision may be just as important as the move itself.

"We're running, I'll say a slightly defensive playbook. So when I think of how to allocate portfolios right now, this isn't the moment in time that we're thinking that cash is a huge investment," Dizard explains. "We want to remain fully invested but, we do like diversified portfolios. With the uncertainties — whether it be the Fed, inflation, labor, US consumer, when rate cuts and why rate cuts are going to happen — when we look at that mix of uncertain data, right now it just doesn't seem like asymmetric risks are the ones that are going to pay off."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

- And, Marc, so we got another big event on your calendar as a strategist. Earnings season is kicking off here. I'm interested what you think we're going to hear. Is it a potential catalyst to the market, Marc?

MARC DIZARD: Yeah. So, you know, coming off of last year, obviously, you know, I'll say we broke the earnings recession because we had a few quarters there where it was negative earnings growth. Obviously, with last earnings season, we broke that. We all stayed positive, 5%, rounding a little bit there on earnings growth.

But I think we're going to see a continuation, especially into this season here, wrapping up the Q4, right, heading into that earnings season. I think we're going to see a continuation. So what do I mean by that?

If you take out everyone's beloved magnificent seven stocks, third quarter earnings results were actually negative. I think we're going to see some of that same masking into this earnings season here. So expectations coming into it from a market perspective, it's going to be positive, so overall, we'll see that positive earnings growth.

But again, I think if we strip out just those seven names, we're going to see actually negative earnings growth. So we're going to be in that same kind of state where you have a few bellwethers that are really carrying sentiment, carrying the market, covering up, I'll say, in some ways, maybe some weak points. Really, as I think of the entire 2024, if we are going to see the market rally higher, if we're going to see a continuation of, you know, what we enjoyed in November, December, we're going to have to see it broaden out, I'll say, to the other 493 names. It's going to have to be a broader earnings recovery, not just covered up by just a few names turning everything to look positive on the headline.