The bear market likely isn't over despite stocks rising as the second quarter comes to a close.
"I don't know that it's over yet," Truist Co-Chief Investment Officer Keith Lerner said on Yahoo Finance Live. "I think there is going to be a difference in the way that we come out of this relative to the last decade. If you think about the last decade, you had a lot of V-shaped recoveries for the market. And why did we have them? Because the Federal Reserve had the market's back."
Markets have stabilized a bit in the late June, taking their queue from relief in gas prices and no new hawkish surprises from Federal Reserve members.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite have all rallied over 3% in the past five trading sessions. Big-cap tech stocks — which have been pummeled amid rate hikes and recession worries — have made a comeback as well. Amazon stock, for instance, is up more than 6% over the last five trading sessions.
"I think we'll probably go more back to... a bottoming process where you have a move up and then moves back down and retesting, which we didn't really see the last couple of years," Lerner said. "But now the Fed is not going to save the market, necessarily."
Improved market sentiment has prompted some strategists on Wall Street to opine the rally may continue in the short-term. In a note on Monday, Morgan Stanley bearish strategist Mike Wilson stated that he looking for a 5-7% near-term bounce in stocks.
"While the bottom of this bear market won’t likely happen until gasoline prices decline meaningfully, last Saturday night’s [crypto] massacre and reversals in other assets is a reminder that bear markets don’t move in a straight line forever, setting the table for a bottom/tradable rally into the next FOMC meeting on July 27," Evercore ISI's Julian Emanuel stated.
Most pros note that economic data is unlikely to inspire for the balance of the year, leaving a downside bias remains in the markets. And to Lerner's point, the Fed not being a friend to stocks is also likely to remain as a dark cloud.
"It's premature to say the bottom is in," Lerner said.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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