Schwab Asset Management’s Aguilar Sees Broad Deceleration Coming

(Bloomberg) -- Charles Schwab Corp.’s Omar Aguilar said a broad slowdown is on the horizon, after a long rally in global equity indexes that roared back from early Covid-19 pandemic jitters. 

The chief investment officer at Schwab’s asset management division, said he anticipates growth cooling off heading into the fourth quarter, compared to early 2021. 

“In one word, we’re decelerating,” Aguilar said, speaking at the Bloomberg Invest conference on Thursday. “We’re decelerating the global economy, we’re decelerating the rate of inflation, we’re decelerating the amount of consumer demand, which is probably the main concern I have going into the holiday season.” 

A frothy attitude among retail traders is also starting to wane, Aguilar said. The late-January retail investor appetite for investments in stocks like GameStop Corp. is also abating.

“That has decelerated, too,” he said. “The deceleration of interest in what was called the ‘meme stocks’ started to change right at the end of the summer.” 

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