Market Strategist Wien: Stocks Are Bottoming

Market strategist Byron Wien says the stock market is in the process of bottoming, and it will perform more strongly by year end.

"I don't know what's going to happen over the next month," said Wien during an appearance on "Squawk Box." "You are in a period now where the market is overshooting on the downside. I do think we're in a bottoming area, at least in terms of a potential rally."

"I think the market will do better later on in the summer. We may go back to test, but I think by the end of the year, the market will be performing more strongly than it is now," he said.

Wien, Pequot Capital chief investment officer, said the markets are rife with negativism: "The investment environment is filled with despair. That's where we are right now, and that's usually where we are at the bottom."

Wien told me in a quick interview later that he came to his current view when the S&P 500 fell through 1300. "I had been pretty bearish," he said. His S&P 500 target had been 1280 at the time.

He said the market leadership usually changes in a bear market, but he sees the current leaders continuing - energy, materials and industrials. And he said outside of the financial sector, the economy is not in terrible shape.

Wien is not the only strategist looking for a bottom right now. I spoke to BlackRock's Bob Doll the other day and he says it's time for investors to brave the market and look for opportunities. He too said the negative sentiment was signaling a bottom.

Many traders we speak to though are still waiting for signs of capitulation in a big volume sell off before they are ready to call a turn.

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