(Bloomberg) — Allspring Global Investments’ Ann Miletti said Wall Street has more to worry about from next week’s Jackson Hole economic symposium than earnings from AI bellwether Nvidia Corp.
“The thing that we try to stay focused on with all the craziness going on is what you can control,” said Miletti, who is Allspring’s head of equity investments. “Looking at companies from a bottom-up perspective, really understanding what companies have the balance sheet and the flexibility to kind of get through any environment — that’s really where we’re focused, and that’s what we have control of.”
Investors should keep expectations low heading into the Jackson Hole event, Miletti said Friday in a Bloomberg Television interview. That forum — hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and headlined by Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh on Aug. 28 — comes two days after quarterly results from Nvidia, whose $5.2 trillion market value makes it the world’s most-valuable public company.
Nvidia and Jackson Hole both loom large in Wall Street’s thinking next week. But there may be greater uncertainty around the Fed event, because Treasury yields have jumped since last month’s policy meeting and a Warsh press conference that left many traders skeptical of his willingness to act on inflation.
Miletti said corporate borrowing costs have moved from below 5% at the start of the year to above 5.5%. While the absolute level is not historically extreme, “it’s the quickness of the move, the sharpness of the move that can make a difference” — particularly given the scale of capital expenditure spending underway, said Miletti, who is also Allspring’s chief diversity officer.
That concern is amplified by turbulence in bonds, with 30-year Treasury yields spiking to more than 5.3% this week before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s decision to double a planned debt buyback to $4 billion. That shock intervention briefly stirred market optimism but failed to deliver lasting relief.
On equities, Miletti said she would “not mind a little bit more” correction following the pullback seen in July, arguing it would put markets “in a better place to really remain stable for the rest of the year.”
Healthcare and small-cap industrials are her preferred areas, she said. While healthcare stocks have underperformed, a rotation is starting to take shape as investors see AI-driven innovation potential, she said.
(This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.)
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