Markets may have shrugged off Brexit worries to hit new highs, but pricey stocks should make investors more cautious than ever, said David Bahnsen, chief investment officer for the Bahnsen Group at HighTower. “‘Stocks as the new bonds’ is the most investable theme out there,” said Bahnsen. “Investors have to weigh the attractiveness of the dividend yields and balance sheet strength of many low volatility, high yield sectors like utilities versus the clearly frothy valuations there.” One of Bahnsen’s top stock picks is Blackstone , down 14% year-to-date, calling it a “best of breed asset manager deeply misunderstood by markets”. He said Blackstone is being given no credit for its $80 billion of dry powder that can be deployed across real estate, credit, hedge fund, and private equity spaces. Meanwhile, he said investors can enjoy the company’s 8.6% yield while they wait for more normalcy in capital markets. “This is an investment into an elite management team that has the execution ability to win,” said Bahnsen. Enterprise Products is another one of Bahnsen’s favorite names. The pipeline player sold off last year with the rest of the MLPs, but has rallied back 16% thus far in 2016 along with oil. “We see the market granting due respect again to the pipeline companies that deserve it due to their superior balance sheets. Enterprise is king of that crowd, and has a vibrant natural gas liquids business which is going to continue to see massive growth of volumes for the foreseeable future,” said Bahnsen, adding that the company’s 5.4% yield is another attractive feature about the stock. Finally, Bahnsen is bullish on LyondellBasell , down 11% thus far in 2016, due to the company’s impressive record of paying and raising dividends, not to mention its valuation. “You can’t even put a number on their annual dividend growth. It was up 13% last year and 36% each of the two years before that,” said Bahnsen. “The stock trades eight time earnings, grows earnings 7% to 10% per year, and is paying us 4.43% per year. They are the leadership name in petro-chemical production, and they are growing free cash flow in a material way.”
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