Fund Manager: Buy Fast -- and Buy These Names

The time to buy stocks, says Michael Cuggino, is now.

The president and portfolio manager of Permanent Portfolio Funds offered CNBC very specific reasons to buy -- and the specific stocks you need.

"I think we're going to slow down in the next couple of quarters, but I think the effect of the Federal Funds Rate cuts will take control in the second half of the year,' he told CNBC. "You want to be looking at stocks now."

Cuggino urges investors to look at companies that have profit potential, that control pricing power, and that can control their fixed cost base.

"We like the biotech and pharma areas, especially...Genentech and Amgen, he said. "We also like U.S. multinationals that have the ability to play worldwide, because we think the worldwide growth story is still intact."

Longer-term, Cuggino even likes American investment banks.

"I think the key thing is playing chicken with respect to when to get in," he said. "These firms are too diverse to go to zero; they're the gatekeepers of capital that the world needs to continue to grow; and they do very well in a low, short-term interest-rate environment."