Retail

Retail Roundtable: Buy for the long term

Buying for the long term is the best way for retail investors to play the volatile market, according to two retail investors.

Daniel Pincus, founder of the World Golf Network, and Kaley Burlingame, co-CEO of Virginia Tech SEED (a student-managed endowment fund), told CNBC's "Closing Bell" what their top retail picks are as the end of the year inches closer.

Pincus said, "I'd rather buy a company based on their management, based on their profitability and based on fundamentals because I know in the long term they'll be making money for us."

Some of these stocks include Apple, which Pincus said is his favorite, as well as Intel which he called a "tremendous company."

"Beyond technology, I think that the resources, like gas ... things which have been beaten down tremendously, I think in the long term are going to see a very big bounce but it's not going to be in the near term, but it will be soon after."

Pincus added, "I do believe we'll have one of those Christmas rallies by the end of the year, and I think that we'll be in a more positive mode once we get through this time frame."

People shop in the Manhattan Mall in New York City.
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Burlingame said she echoes Pincus' sentiment on buying long term.

"We're still actually relatively bullish, we're still buying stocks," she said. "We're not looking to make short-term plays off of downturns in the market or anything like that. But we do have a positive long-term outlook."

Burlingame said SEED is watching Wal-Mart closely. The retail giant was down more than 28 percent from its 52-week high at Wednesday's close. Burlingame said that while it will hurt their margin initially, she expects Wal-Mart's margins to improve in the long run following an increase in employee wages earlier this year.

"Eventually they're going to pass the price of [increased employee wages] back onto the consumer," she said. "We think that their margins will improve, especially as employee turnover decreases and they're able to lessen the amount of money that they're having to spend on training costs."

Employees assist shoppers at the check out counter of a Walmart store in Los Angeles.
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In terms of the broader market, Pincus said that he believes the U.S. stock market is healthy and that price earnings ratios "are not astronomical at all."

However, in a Wednesday appearance, Carl Icahn told CNBC's "Fast Money: Halftime Report that earnings are "misstated," markets look "way overpriced," and that many investors have put themselves in "dangerous" positions.

Pincus said that this isn't necessarily the case.

"I believe that the market is fairly valued, and I believe that it could go down a bit more," Pincus said. "But I do not believe it is overvalued at this time."

— CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.