Another banking crisis?
According to O’Leary, we haven’t seen the last of regional banks failures as of yet.
“Every couple of months, you get another regional bank story. And I can guarantee you that loan book is shut down most recently here in New York Community Bank, same story that's happening in 4,000 other locations around the country,” he remarked, pointing to New York Community Bancorp (NYCB), which saw its stock plunge about 50% following significant losses on its commercial real estate loans and subsequent downgrades.
O'Leary has been raising concerns about banks since early last year. Anticipating future challenges, in this recent interview, he stated, “I think in the months ahead, we'll get more failures of regional banks around office space and commercial real estate.”
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Where O’Leary made his biggest gains
Despite these grim forecasts, O’Leary maintains a positive stance towards the stock market. During the interview, he disclosed that he’s “staying long stocks,” citing limited opportunities in fixed income investments.
Furthermore, O’Leary said that he’s “incredibly bullish on the economy.”
Still, that doesn’t mean he’s buying every stock on the market.
“My biggest gains have come from mid cap stocks — a subset of the Russell 2000,” he said. He explains this success by noting that a significant portion of the market is speculating on a potential “regime change” in Washington within the next 24 months. This speculation, which he said has “at least a 50/50 chance,” could lead to a transition to a less regulated domestic economy, which is expected to favor companies that generate all their revenue within the United States.
He highlighted energy as a particularly intriguing sector, stating, “You deregulate, including energy which is selling at a huge discount, you want to be long now before the market figures out regime change, because look at what would happen just to energy.”
The energy sector has indeed been an overlooked place compared to the broader market. Over the last 12 months, the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) has seen an increase of 1.44%, in stark contrast to the S&P 500's substantial gain of 24.29%.
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