Wall Street’s pros fess up: ‘We don’t know what’s going on’

by Vildana Hajric and Elena Popina, Bloomberg - Published March 08. 2020

Excerpt below:

Along with the virus, here's what people said has been driving the stock market this week. Optimism over Fed policy. Pessimism over Fed policy. Optimism over the government's response. Pessimism over the government's response. The Beige Book. Joe Biden.

The ink's barely dry on one view, and the market goes careening the other way. It's a futile, and infuriating, situation for investors and analysts. Forget about trying to predict where stocks will be in six months or a year. These guys can't even figure out where they'll be tomorrow. Everything depends on how the virus outbreak will play out. And nobody has a clue.

A string of companies have warned of hits to profits but few have said how big. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, among others, have cut their earnings forecasts in recent days. Cumberland Advisors, a money management firm with over $3 billion in assets, has taken down its projections three times, according to David Kotok, the firm's chief investment officer.

"We aren't getting guidance from companies because companies don't know what to give," Kotok told Bloomberg TV this week. "But we do know pain is coming on the earnings front." The firm projects earnings of $160 for 2020, but may lower them again, he said. "We don't know what the final numbers will be."

Read the full article at The Day: https://www.theday.com/article/20200308/BIZ02/200309524