Tags: leon cooperman | stock | returns

Leon Cooperman: Stock Returns Will Be 'Unimpressive for a Long Time'

By    |   Monday, 31 August 2020 06:43 PM EDT

Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman predicted that stock-market returns could be disappointing for a “long time” with this year’s seemingly endless rally draining future gains.

“The overall market, we’ve been pulling a lot of demand forward. I would expect that future returns will be relatively unimpressive for a long time,” he told CNBC.

“We came into 2020 with a full employed economy, yet we were running a trillion-dollar deficit. And now we’re piling a lot of debt on top of that. And so I would have to say I have a conservative view,” he added.

“What’s driving the whole thing is interest rates,” Cooperman said. “What people have to understand is that the Fed is pursuing this zero-interest rate policy not because things are good in the economy. They’re pursuing a zero-interest rate policy because things are bad in the economy.”

Cooperman, who founded investment firm Omega Advisors in the early 1990s, recently turned it into a family office at the end of 2018. He noted that the economy has had some sort of government assistance since the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, Cooperman told CNBC he is not sure whether he will vote for President Donald Trump or Democrat Joe Biden in November.

“Everybody thinks that Biden is a socialist. I don’t think so, but ... he’s got to speak out loudly and clearly what he stands for,” the Omega Family Office chairman said on “Squawk Box.”

Cooperman said Trump has “limited character” but “good economic ideas.”

“I have not decided,” Cooperman said on “Squawk Box.” But the Omega Family Office chairman added that, “this election, in my opinion, is pivotal in the long-term outlook,” he said.

“We have to make sure that we stay as a capitalist nation. Everybody thinks that Biden is a socialist. I don’t think so, but he’s got to speak out. He’s got to speak out loudly and clearly what he stands for,” Cooperman said.

However, others are much more optimistic about the market's future.

Billionaire hedge fund manager William Ackman touted the success of his funds last week, citing attractive valuations for his holdings and saying he has up to $7 billion to invest in a private company, while saying that opening stock ownership to all Americans is a key to political stability.

For a second straight year, Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management is generating double-digit returns with a 44.1% gain at his Pershing Square Holdings portfolio. Four of nine portfolio companies, including Lowe's and Chipotle Mexican Grill have gained in spite of the Covid-19 outbreak, Reuters reported.

"Our current holdings remain attractively valued, offering substantial additional profit potential over the long term," Ackman wrote to investors, adding that even those in the red, including Hilton Worldwide, "will recover in the long term."

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StreetTalk
Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman predicted that stock-market returns could be disappointing for a “long time” with this year’s seemingly endless rally draining future gains.
leon cooperman, stock, returns
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2020-43-31
Monday, 31 August 2020 06:43 PM
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