No Higher Markets Without Good Inflation News, Analyst Says

Russ Koesterich, senior portfolio manager at Barclays Global Investors, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” that the equities market needs a “catalyst” to move significantly higher.

“I think we’re coming up against those early winter highs and it’s not going to be that easy to get through them,” Koesterich said Monday. “We need a catalyst. To me, the next catalyst is probably going to be the inflation report coming out next week. We need to start to see core inflation pulling back.”

He said many technology stocks, especially semiconductors, are undervalued. Koesterich expects them to do well if the economy holds up. He’s cautious about utilities, because they’re slow-growth stocks now trading at about a 10% premium to the market.

Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James, said he’s cautious on the aggregate indexes because he expects weak first-quarter earnings.

Saut is cautious on financial stocks and bullish on the energy sector.