Truist, one of the largest banks in the United States, says artificial intelligence remains the driving force behind the stock market’s latest leg higher, but points to a different asset that has quietly outpaced even the biggest tech names.
In a new Yahoo Finance interview, Truist chief investment officer Keith Lerner says the macro environment has been shifting for the past few years, but AI and tech have been steadily fueling market rallies to new highs.
“If you think about the last couple of years, I mean, this market has had to deal with a lot of different narratives. We think about inflation, interest rates, tariffs. And each time, we’ve seen companies adapt and come out the other side somewhat stronger.
So listen, there is risk. I don’t want to say it’s Pollyannish out there. But I think what we’re seeing, especially as you mentioned with the Oracle earnings, is that this market continues to earn that benefit of the doubt. And to me, the dominant theme of this bull market that we’ve been talking about for the last few years is AI and technology, and that’s where the strongest earnings growth is as well.”
While Lerner believes that AI and tech will continue to lift the stock market to higher levels, the Truist executive notes that one commodity is outperforming the equities.
“And we’ve been positive on gold all year long. It’s actually up more than tech. It’s up 40% this year. And after moving sideways for about four months, it just broke out recently, again.
And you’re seeing central bank buying. And when there’s some questions about political instability, the change in kind of the US on the global scene, you’re seeing central banks around the world increase their holdings of gold as well. So to us, it’s a modest position, but we still think it’s a good diversifier.
And the last point is, when we’ve seen days where stocks and bonds are both down, we’re seeing that gold is actually providing good diversification, being up on those days, providing that offset the majority of time.”
Truist is the ninth-largest bank in the US with over $535,585 billion in assets, according to Federal Reserve data.
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