Mid-cap stocks offer 'a place to play' amid trade uncertainty

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Markets (^GSPC, ^IXIC, ^DJI) remain near recent highs as investors wait on trade deal details ahead of the July truce deadline.

Robinhood Markets chief investment officer, Stephanie Guild, joins Morning Brief to discuss how diversification and sector positioning could help investors navigate the uncertainty.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.

00:00 Speaker A

We're still within 200 points of the S&P 500 high at this juncture with no deals right now. I mean okay, US UK uh if if we want to count that. But at the end of the day for all of the talk that we're seeing emerge from both sides and whether that is the US and China, whether that's the US and India. We're still waiting for the details of these deals to really figure out how investors can also trade on that. So what should investors be using as their checklist as we do see some of the details come out around these deals if we do see them prior to the end of this truce period, which is up in just about a month here.

00:59 Speaker B

July 9th. Yeah the first one anyway. Um I think there's I think there's a couple of things. One is that whenever I hear like I think a good barometer has actually been listening to Treasury percent, Treasurer percent. I think he's like when he went out on Face the Nation on Sunday like some of the things he said has already started like he talked about how the deficit is not going to be as big issue and that the CBO was not taking into account, you know, some of the the tariff revenue. And then, you know, I think it was yesterday they said actually we're going to cut the deficit by 400 billion over the next 10 years. I mean, who knows what will happen over the next 10 years, but at least the plan is not to raise it. And that is good for interest rates, right? And interest rates do drive valuation. So I think that's he to me has been a good barometer because what he does say comes true. And I do think there's going to, I personally think there's going to be deals. So the way we started managing money we have a stra uh product called Robin Hood strategies and in it we've actually been um pretty diversified where we have allocations to some international equities because that's why I think like you have to have some of that diversification not just thinking about the US in this global environment because if there are deals, then those non-US investments are going to probably do well, and then you'll have some cyclical growth names do well here as well.

03:19 Speaker A

Can we double click on the cyclical growth names and why do you think that that is potentially a better investment than the likes of continuing to double down on an Nvidia for example?

03:34 Speaker B

I'm not saying don't do things like Nvidia, but I think markets have gotten pretty well valued, right? Like I think you know even with earnings estimates coming down, valuations are fair at best if you look out to 2026, right? They're around 20 times. In the mid-cap space for example though, you've actually seen valuations come down because you've seen earnings estimates come down, but you've actually seen like prices come down even more and they haven't rallied back. And so that's why I say like in the mid-cap space is a maybe a place to play. Um and then you end up getting you know kind of a mix of things that um of pro-cyclical things, right? And then things that are maybe a little more defensive versus I I'm still not a fan of small caps for example because it's just still too focused on there. But I also think like financials is a a place to consider um because I do think what everyone's forgotten about in the midst of tariffs is that there is this other side of the administration's policy, which is like M&A and deregulation and financials is probably a place that will benefit from that.