'Santa rally' won't rekindle as the omicron risks and profit-taking, PNC Financial’s CIO predicts

December 22, 2021: -PNC Financial is throwing cold water on the fourth-quarter rally. Covid omicron’s fears will take a heavy toll on risk appetites over the coming two weeks, according to Chief Investment Officer Amanda Agati. “We’ve already gotten the Santa rally,” she told CNBC on Monday. “We’re seeing a little bit of investor fatigue here,” she added.

The huge indexes kicked off the week in the red. The S&P 500 has been down 3% over the last three days. It’s the index’s worst three-day slide since September.

Therefore, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is down nearly 4% in the same period.

“In addition to the omicron fears and negative headlines hanging around, I think investors are locking in some of those gains and ready to go on Christmas vacation,” she added.

“We don’t think this is going to lead to a significant market correction,” said Agati, who noted liquidity is relatively low this time of year.

Agati’s optimism hinges on omicron having lesser severe repercussions than previous Covid-19 strains. Her longer-term 2022 forecast, which came out on Monday, is built on the assumption omicron won’t lead to hospitalization spikes, economic shutdowns, and supply chain trouble.

Even though her top wildcard is Covid, her base case is that 2022 will be a strong year for the market. Plus, she is believing one of this year’s biggest losers will stage a significant rebound.

“Emerging markets is well positioned, but it’s been punished from the regulatory overhangs. What I think will be interesting in the coming year is we’ll start to see some of that, China regulatory backdrop fade,” Agati said. “That would be the shot in the arm that emerging markets need to outperform in 2022.”