Peter Andersen, CIO at Andersen Capital Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he breaks down Monday's trading action and discusses whether this could be the start of a new rally or a blip in an otherwise disappointing stretch.

Closing Bell

Stocks Start Week off Strong, Close Sharply Higher

joining me now is Peter Anderson, chief investment Officer Anderson at Capital Management. Peter thanks for coming on. What was working for investors today in the stock market? Well, you know, we are seeing this endless tug of war between the optimistic and the pessimistic. And sometimes we see it play out very dramatically. Other days. It's a little bit almost an even tie. But today we have seen that the optimists, for some unknown reasons, frankly, have started this week off fairly strongly. That's not to say the week we'll continue this way. And I think it's a symptom of just the great uncertainty. Where are we in this cycle? Many people are right balance between optimists and pessimists. And I think tiny little pieces of news can push those people over either to the optimist side or the pessimist side. And I think that's what we're seeing for the past several months. In reality, yes, certainly we did get some optimistic comments from Jpmorgan Chase Ceo, Jamie Diamond earlier today saying the consumers in a good position, Jpmorgan stock, one of the best performers on the session. And then these comments from the Atlanta Fed President that we could actually see a pause in rate hikes in september after two half of a percentage point rate rises that we do expect mid june and of course late july, what are the other data points on your radar the rest of this week Peter because we know this market can turn on a dime. It absolutely can. And unfortunately, it's been taking many downturns rather than upturns, hasn't it? But you know, you mentioned the regional Fed officials and I do think that they have tremendous influence right now and they're so independent minded that we see across the country the Fed, when the officials speak, they never speak in unison. They always speak very individually and that can cause a lot of volatility in the market. You can have one Fed officials say. I think the Fed will be done, you know, two more and done then tomorrow we could have another Regional Fed come out and say, oh absolutely not. In fact, I see a 50 or 75 basis point hike. So when you have all those voices opining with no stress on them to be a unified voice, I think that's what you see. So I watched those, the Fed um press releases and the Fed comments to see how that might, you know, influence the market in general. But what I actually look at is when the companies come out with earnings, we need to take a look at maybe just the top revenue growth. If you had to look at one thing only right now in this cycle as opposed to the bottom line earnings, I think the revenue growth is the key indicator because it's less impacted by a lot of noise on the income statement. And if you have a fantastic revenue growth, I think that should carry you through these dark periods where people are saying, you know, the end of the rally is over and growth is dead and value as king. I just don't agree with those kinds of comments interesting now, do you see opportunities peter in this market right now you're an investment officer. Of course we've seen the NASDAQ dropped more than 30% from its high in november. The S and P 500 falling into that bear market territory on friday. Are their bargains out there to you? Well, I'm not sure that I would call them bargains but I would call them attractive candidates to consider buying and you know it has to be very individual recommendations because if you need cash in the next year I would say stay away from the stock market right now. But for those of investors that have longer horizons You can't time the bottom and you might be buying on the way down still but I would guarantee you almost that a year, 18 months from now you will look back and we will be saying we should have bought more stocks for those of us that are in a longer time horizon. I do think that stocks have been oversold right now. I think growth stocks, classic growth stocks Really aren't getting any respect. And I totally disagree with the idea that if interest rates are rising, we should get away from growth stocks. Growth stocks by their very definition have revenue growth of you know anywhere from 20 to 40 to 50% year over year and we are seeing many of those companies with those kinds of growth, but they're all being thrown out with the bathwater.