Wall Street bull Jeffrey Mills believes a Federal Reserve interest rate cut is not necessary to sustain the stock market rally.
However, the PNC Financial co-chief investment strategist believes it’ll happen later this month anyway despite the stronger than expected June jobs report.
Mills contends it can’t hurt investors, albeit for the time being.
“Don’t fight the Fed. Enjoy the rally,” he told CNBC’s “Futures Now ” last Tuesday.
It’s a view he continues to hold even though the S&P 500 broke a five day winning streak on Friday. The index is still just a fraction of one percent off its all-time high.
Mills, who believes the S&P could rise another 5% or more from current levels, believes market technicals are in good shape.
“You have about 50% of individual stocks in the S&P 500 now trading above their one month highs,” Mills said.
Long-term challenges?
However, what’s good near-term may create challenges for investors with long-term goals.
Mills points out low rates help to support multiples right now, but data shows equity returns over extended periods historically suffer.
According to Mills, a standard 60/40 stock market and bond portfolio over the next decade will likely fail to perform in-line with average gains due to the current environment. Instead of earning an average return above 10%, he expects investors will see about 6% — in-line with what money market accounts were paying in the late 1990s.
“What people tend to miss, and when they try to justify current valuation levels with the current low level of interest rates is that over the next long-term period, it’s actually not a good thing for returns,” Mills said.