Picks & shovels, commodity diversifiers
European stocks are set for a downbeat end to the week amid continued concerns about the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. It follows a negative session for Wall Street, which bled into Asia , although Taiwan’s TAIEX outperformed, boosted by TSMC shares hitting a record high. U.S. futures were tentatively higher on Friday, with a rebound in tech boosting the Nasdaq in premarket trading. Here are three investment strategies we heard out of CNBC’s London and Singapore studios on Friday to help navigate the noise. Picks and shovels Kenny Polcari, partner and chief market strategist at SlateStone Wealth, said he is advising his clients to stay calm amid market volatility, and to take advantage by buying the dip and focusing on the picks and shovels of the AI trade. He noted stocks including IBM , Microsoft and Nvidia . “I’d start looking at Salesforce and ServiceNow — they are significantly down on the year, and at some point, those names aren’t going away,” he added. “I’m much more of a technician than I am a fundamentalist,” Polcari told CNBC. I’ll look at it on the chart. I’ll see wher the support levels are, and then I’ll make a decision from there.” Commodity diversifier @GC.1 @SI.1 1Y line Gold vs. Silver over the last 12 months When it comes to navigating stock turbulence, Dominic Schnider, head of commodities and APAC Forex CIO at UBS Wealth Management, described the market as complacent and advocated for increased exposure to commodities. The advantage of a diversified commodity portfolio is that it significantly reduces volatility, Schnider said, adding that a broad index can be as volatile as equities because correlations across sectors are very low. “When equities have a scary situation, all the equity market tends to come down,” he told CNBC. “That’s not the case for commodities. If you’re broadly diversified, and you really have your 30% energy, 30% let’s say metals, and 30% somewhere there in agriculture — you do bring this volatility down,” he said, adding that this is key for positioning for the longer term. How to play the end of the Iran-U.S. conflict BRI Wealth Management CEO Dan Boardman-Weston outlined how investors can best position their portfolios and strategies in the event of an end to the hostilities between the U.S. and Iran in the near future. We’ll likely see that investors who have allocated significant amounts to the U.S. will probably resume looking for opportunities outside of the U.S., whether that’s the U.K., Europe or emerging markets, he said. “There’s favourable dynamics in all of those markets. Valuations are quite cheap. There’s some very good companies and a lot of AI beneficiaries in all of those markets,” the CEO noted. “If there is, miraculously, some sort of all-encompassing peace deal or ceasefire, and the Strait of Hormuz is opened up without encumbrance, then I would expect the American market to lag,” Boardman-Weston told CNBC. “So, I’d be investing outside of that.”
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