Buy US stocks as the market’s repeated pullbacks create great bargains for growth companies, says one Wall Street chief strategist

• John Stoltzfus, Oppenheimer chief investment strategist, told CNBC on Friday that the recent market pullbacks signal a bargain buying opportunity for growth companies in the US. 
• He said that the US has been outperforming most of the markets around the world, and its innovation makes it the best place to invest. 
• Investors should seek out “babies that have been thrown out with the bath water,” like mega-cap technology names, he added. 
• Stoltzfus also said the S&P 500 could rally back to its September 2 high by the end of 2020.

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Oppenheimer’s John Stoltzfus told CNBC on Friday that the recent pullback in stocks could signal a bargain opportunity for investors, specifically in US companies that have been outperforming most other markets around the world.

The chief investment strategist cited the innovation in the US market as the reason why it’s the best place to invest right now.

“We’ve taken out the froth that had come into the market in certain [mega cap] names,” the Stoltzfus said. “It may be a good opportunity to pick up some really good, high-quality growth stories that are on sale right now.” 

In a Monday note, he reiterated what he said on CNBC: It’s not a bad time for investors to consider buying “babies that have been thrown out with the bath water,” specifically referring to technology stocks.

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Stoltzfus wrote that while technology sector valuations may have gotten stretched and even “bubbly” within some initial public offering names, this is nothing like the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s. Today, technology companies are “significantly profitable” and more essential to people’s lives than ever before.

“The purposefulness of technology today is felt on so many levels of society that in our view it engenders a virtuous upgrade cycle among its varied constituencies across the globe that is relentless,” Stoltzfus wrote. 

Outside of the technology sector, consumer discretionary and communications services may be other somewhat oversold areas that investors could buy at a discount right now, wrote the chief investment strategist. Materials and industrials also appear attractive, he added. 

Improving economic data has led Stoltzfus to believe that the S&P 500 index could rally back to its September 2 high. He wrote that the benchmark index could even go higher than its previous record by the end of 2020 if a vaccine for COVID-19 is approved, and if the US election outcome is “friendly to the domestic economy, business, job growth, and the taxpayer.”