El-Erian lifts his don't-buy-the-dip warning for pros, but says most investors should still wait
- "If you are a long-term investor, I would wait," economist Mohamed El-Erian said Monday.
- El-Erian first warned against buying stock declines last month as the coronavirus was spreading around the globe.
- "If you're a short-term tactical investor, there's a lot of opportunities out there," he said.
Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, said Monday that most investors should avoid buying stocks after last week's dramatic coronavirus-fueled sell-off.
"If you are a long-term investor, I would wait. I think fundamentals are going to deteriorate even faster. I think the policies and fundamentals are going to go in favor of bad fundamentals, unfortunately, initially," El-Erian said on "Squawk Box."
El-Erian, former CEO of investment powerhouse Pimco, first warned last month against buying the dips in stocks as the coronavirus was spreading around the globe. Last week, he said that "this is different" and it would be hard to restart economies that were paused during the outbreak.
New economic data from China, where the epidemic began, showed a serious contraction in February in the manufacturing sector.
Wall Street suffered its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis last week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling into correction territory. A correction is defined as a decline of 10% or more from recent 52-week highs. The bounce at Monday's open did not come close to making up for last week.
El-Erian said Monday that it's "no longer an easy call" to tell investors across the board to stay away.
For professional investors, he said there are now places for them to put their money because of how widespread the plunge was last week. "If you're a short-term tactical investor, there's a lot of opportunities out there."