BlackRock CIO Says Current Investing Environment Is Good – But There’s One Thing in the Market He’s ‘Most Worried’ About

BlackRock executive Rick Rieder reportedly believes market conditions are presenting the “best investment environment ever.”

In a new interview with CNBC, Rieder, the asset management giant’s chief investment officer of global fixed income, says several factors make the current market favorable for investors.

“It doesn’t mean necessarily everything’s going up, but there’s a couple things at play that are pretty extraordinary. First of all, technicals on equities are crazy, the amount of cash on the sidelines, the amount of buybacks relative to the IPO (initial public offering) calendar, i.e. the demand versus supply, is pretty extraordinary…

I looked at 2024 – if you strip out Tesla for obvious reasons – Mag 7 year-on-year growth is like 54%…

Then you take the other side of it, you have a fixed income. I think the Fed can cut rates, but until then you got yield levels, you can create portfolio 6.5%-7% yield. That’s pretty good.

I would throw out [one] last thing… [there’s] low volatility to own equities – so you don’t actually have to take the downside risk. That’s a pretty good environment.”

However, he warns that traders could be becoming overly confident and underestimating risks as a result.

“I’ll tell you what I’m most worried about, complacency… Complacency is high. You see it in some of the credit markets.”

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