The Best Investing Advice for 2019 From Fortune's Experts
November 19, 2018
The economy and the stock market don’t always march in lockstep, and investors got a sharp reminder of that fact this fall. Parade-and-fireworks-worthy GDP growth and employment numbers shared the spotlight with an ugly market slide that took some previously beloved stocks into bear-market territory. Fears about inflation and trade tensions were among the culprits; so was the pervasive sense that the U.S. bull market, nearly 10 years old, can’t last much longer. (For more, see our August cover story, “The End Is Near.”) So which companies will be able to deliver standout returns as the market’s mood gets more downbeat? To answer that question, Fortune convened our annual roundtable of investors.
This year’s panel included Lori Keith, portfolio manager at Parnassus Investments, which specializes in socially responsible investing and has $28 billion under management; John Linehan, chief investment officer for equity at T. Rowe Price, which has $1.1 trillion under management; Catherine Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, a firm whose investments focus on “disruptive innovation”; Kate Warne, investment strategist for $1 trillion financial services firm Edward Jones; and Ed Sim, founder of Boldstart Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in tech infrastructure and software development. Here, edited excerpts from their discussion.
FORTUNE: With growth strong and unemployment low, it’s hard not to feel that we’ve reached the peak of an economic cycle. So what comes next? Is it a gentle slowdown or something more severe?
KATE WARNE: We may be at the peak growth rate, like we saw in the second quarter with growth above 4%. But many of the factors that have kept the economy growing and have kept the unemployment rate falling remain in place. We do expect growth to fade a bit as tariffs bite, and the impact of the tax cuts from this year won’t be as strong next year. But we don’t see this as some kind of peak. Think of 2019 as part of this long, extended expansion.
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