Coronavirus

Record Highs Are Justified Because a Booming Economy Is Months Away, Market Bull Ed Yardeni Predicts

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Long-time Wall Street bull Ed Yardeni believes the market's all-time highs are justified.

Despite a record number of coronavirus cases and concerns surrounding the November jobs report, he maintains a "V"-shaped recovery is underway.

"I really wasn't that disappointed," the Yardeni Research president told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Friday. "Government had a drop of almost 100,000 [payrolls] because census workers just had part-time jobs. Excluding that, we were up over 300,000. Wages were up, and the workweek held up pretty well."

According to Yardeni, the latest employment figures suggest the first quarter will avoid a double-dip recession. He predicts the economy will start booming by Spring when readily available vaccines result in pent-up demand for services that were avoided during the pandemic.

Plus, Yardeni, who spent decades on Wall Street running investment strategy for firms such as Prudential and Deutsche Bank, believes synchronized global monetary policies will continue to provide massive support.

"You've got the major central banks just pouring liquidity," he added. "I'm not just watching the Federal Reserve balance sheet every week. I watch the ECB [European Central Bank], and the Bank of Japan. They're all continuing to expand their balance sheets."

Even though he's optimistic, Yardeni acknowledges a big part of the U.S. population is in dire need of another round of virus aid.

"There are a lot of people who have been left behind," he said. "Either they lost their jobs and now are being threatened with possibly losing their unemployment insurance. And then, of course, there are a lot of businesses who barely survived the first and second waves of this pandemic."

As for the remainder of the year, Yardeni speculates the market will rise as investors look to further diversify out of a handful of the year's highest flyers.

"November was one of the best months ever for the market," he said. "It broadened quite dramatically the small cap and mid-cap stocks. It was just a great, great month for the market."

Even if the gains don't measure up to last month, Yardeni sees a positive end to the year.

"The market already had its Santa Claus rally," Yardeni said. "But it just keeps going up anyways, and no matter how much you try to look at it fundamentally, I think the fact is there is so much liquidity with interest rates so low driving the market higher."

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