Market Lacks Catalyst to Drive Immediate Gains

Eric Thorne, portfolio manager at Bryn Mawr Trust Wealth Management, told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” that the market lacks a catalyst to drive immediate gains.

“(The market is) looking for any excuse to rally, but it’s also looking for any excuse to sell off,” Thorne said Thursday. “We’ve seen the second day in a row where a nice rally has wilted away. I think the market is searching for a catalyst and there just isn’t one right now. The interest rate scenario is on hold for now. Earnings have been reported. The international scene seems to be relatively stable. Investors need to see a reason to drive stocks higher, and I don’t think we’re going to see that for the next couple of weeks at least.”

He said the market could easily sell off 3% to 5% in the immediate future, but overall remains strong.

“We’re generally bullish on the market for the full year,” Thorne said. “So, we would be buying stocks both internationally and domestically if we were to get that bull back.”

William Rhodes, chief investment strategist at Rhodes Analytics, said the current market is no longer expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in the immediate future and that’s reason enough to clip recent gains by 5% to 10%.

But overall, the market remains strong.

“This is the healthiest market we’ve seen since the late 1940s or early 1950s,” Rhodes said. “It’s a broad market, but it’s been sustained for a long time. The great markets we saw in the 1980s and 1990s were not sustained broad markets. This one is.”