Equities are using labor data 'as an excuse,' strategist says
Stocks closed Friday's session lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) both shedding over 1.6% following the better-than-expected December jobs report. Wall Street experts are looking at the fresh employment data as a cause for the Federal Reserve to slow its interest rate cuts originally planned for 2025. Glenmede Chief of Investment Strategy and Research Jason Pride shares his thoughts with Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton on the report, calling it “pretty decent” and believes the market could be using the labor print "as an excuse." "And to have some excuses for taking a breather is reasonable. That the market's pointing to this one. I don't know that this is really the long-term story here," Pride explains. "In fact, quite often, we believe that markets with interest rates, with inflation expectations, they quite often take the most recent data points and actually extrapolate them a little bit too far." Pride also emphasizes the importance of broadening out and rebalancing one's portfolio in order to explore more of the opportunities — from small-cap stocks (^RUT) to fixed-income (^TYX, ^TNX, ^FVX) — 2025 has to offer. "Take your eyes a little bit off of the big [Magnficient] Seven or [the] big cap growth stocks that everybody is so focused on. Take your eyes a little bit off of that and recognize there is an entire investment universe to own," Pride says. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here. This post was written by Josh Lynch