The stock market has a nervous energy about it. There's so much to worry about: Delta, the state of the recovery, when the Federal Reserve will start tapering....
Among investors' worries is that a cyclical slowdown is lurking beneath the recovery, said Brian Belski, BMO Capital Markets' chief investment strategist.
Sentiment is important for the market, as well as the economy, and worries about a slowdown are increasing. This could mean a Fed that's playing defense.
But it's also why Belski expects a volatile and fear-driven market to persist into 2022.
"I don't think people really understand what tapering is," he mused, adding that many funds have underperformed because they tried to time the market during a period of high uncertainty.
The process would be this: first the Fed would stop buying assets, then it would wind down its holdings and then it would start selling assets.
For him, it's still obvious where to put your money:
"US stocks are the best assets in the world, stay invested here, we have the best companies... that will continue to provide the best results," he said on the CNN Business digital live show Markets Now.