Investors should focus on 'a balanced approach' during the second half, analyst says
- RBC is out with a quarterly update on its Top 30 Global Ideas for 2017, a list of the "most attractive investment ideas" for the year.
- RBC's top picks include MasterCard, Aramark and Newell as smart investments that are well-balanced.
Investors looking for the best place to put their money should focus on balance during the second half of the year, RBC Capital Market's global head of research told CNBC on Friday.
"As we look out into the second half, we see a little bit of a need for balance," Marc Harris said in an interview on "Power Lunch." "If you look back at the end of 2016, small cap worked, value worked, more cyclical-oriented things worked. [...] We think taking a balanced approach going into the second half is the right thing."
RBC is out with a quarterly update on its Top 30 Global Ideas for 2017, a list of the "most attractive investment ideas" for the year.
Harris said MasterCard is RBC's top pick, due to its abundant innovation, with "exciting" things happening behind the scenes beyond just the card itself.
"It's got a lot of economic exposure, so it is a significant mover on volume of transactions, and we think if things are looking better, if inflation begins to take off, and just generally volume begins to take off, MasterCard's in the right place," Harris said.
Aramark is also a "business with a lot of opportunities," Harris said, owning 2 percent of a $900 billion service industry that has "a lot of potential for global and domestic expansion." The food service and uniform provider continues to cut costs for infrastructure and is expanding among universities, according to Harris.
"Any ball field you are going to, there is a pretty good chance you've got Aramark behind the service that they're providing," Harris said. "They are the food, they are the services. You want to buy your t-shirt at the concert? They're probably behind it."
Harris said RBC also favored Newell, the former Newell Rubbermaid that merged with Jarden in 2015. Harris said the consumer goods brand holds a powerful role in the Amazon frenzy, playing to the e-commerce trend as a product provider instead of owning "brick and mortar" stores.
"[There is] a lot of new household formation, a lot of young people beginning to start up houses," Harris said. "As that goes, Jarden is in the square center of that [...] They're exactly in the center of that high margin, high volume product that fits squarely into that Amazon model."
The future looks bright for these three brands, according to Harris, striking the right balance between the relying on the economy and personal performance for a safe bet.
"They fit squarely into the center of that good economic expansion, good singular individualized opportunities to take out costs, do other things, grow their own business," Harris said. So you don't need to depend on just the economy, and you don't need to depend on them executing. It's a little bit of both, which is kind of the way you want it."
—CNBC's Michelle Fox contributed to this report.