As the third quarter earnings season kicks off, Keith Buchanan, GLOBALT Investments senior portfolio manager, joins Wealth! to break down what investors can expect.

"The expectations for earnings have started to accelerate from mid-single digits to next year to mid-double digits. And coming into this fourth quarter is a real transition quarter from that lower healthy growth to robust growth. And a lot of that comes from not only being, of course, healthy growth from artificial intelligence... but also a widening of earnings growth and revenue growth that you can see beyond the traditional growth sectors like technology (XLK), consumer services (XLP). That's actually moving out some to industrials (XLI), energy (XLE). And that's more breadth to the earnings growth, which gives it a lot more stability over the near and longer term," Buchanan tells Yahoo Finance.

As Wall Street heads into the year-end, Buchanan is focused on AI plays and value stocks. He highlights areas like financials (XLF), industrials (XLI), and consumer discretionary (XLY) that are poised for growth heading into 2025, explaining, "Those valuations are miles away from where they traditionally trade on a relative to the broader S&P 500 (^GSPC)."

Volatility is expected in the months ahead amid rising Middle East tensions and the 2024 presidential election. Buchanan encourages investors to take into consideration geopolitical tensions when assessing their portfolios. However, he advises against making any moves tied to the election.

"We want to take all of the incoming information that we have that could affect the consensus of where we're going economically, monetarily over the next two years. And take that into consideration when we're thinking about the long-term approach to our clients' assets," he concludes.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth!

This post was written by Melanie Riehl