PNC Financial Services Sees Opportunity in Volatility in 2020

February 18, 2020

Amanda Agati, CFA, is the Chief Investment Strategist for PNC Financial Services Group. She leads the team that establishes overall strategic and tactical asset allocation guidance of client portfolios, oversees the evolution of investment processes, provides thought leadership on key investment issues and authors numerous publications.

She also performs research and analytics that drive the overall investment recommendations of the firm, while also managing the firm’s asset allocation models.

In this 3,38o word interview, Ms. Agati showcases her top picks and portfolio management techniques that have made her an enormously successful portfolio manager.

“…We do have a number of core beliefs and an overarching investment philosophy. And what I would say, at a high level, our investing DNA or mantra is that we believe markets can be inefficient and investment opportunities are ever-changing.

A thorough understanding of the past combined with rigorous analysis of the present really does give us insights into the most probable future outcomes.”

The financial returns for 2020 will be a tale of two markets:

“Our view is that, over the first half, the market will be very focused on the solid improvement in underlying fundamentals and the potential for a global cyclical reacceleration.

We’re seeing kind of the earliest green shoots of that over the last two months forming. But by the time we get to midyear, the focus is going to shift pretty dramatically to the 2020 presidential election. And so that very well could create some additional volatility in the second half as the market wrestles with the potential outcome of that event.”

This bifurcation will create an opportunity for investors:

“…We have found that global infrastructure has some really favorable characteristics, particularly at the later innings of this cycle, when volatility tends to be the name of the game in the market. And so what we like about global infrastructure is that it tends to sit more in the developed world. So this is a little bit different from kind of looking at the emerging markets, but it tends to be exposure largely in the U.S. and developed international. And so it’s an opportunity to kind of play in those markets, stay invested in equity, but dial back a little bit of the volatility exposure.

Get the complete picture by reading the entire 3,38o word interview with Ms. Agati, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.