How billionaire investor Leon Cooperman is playing stocks amidst volatility

US stocks, as represented by the benchmark S&P 500 index, have already crashed some 20% due to Trump tariffs and the subsequently emerging trade war in recent weeks.

Still, billionaire investor Leon Cooperman is not entirely convinced that SPX has hit a bottom yet.

“I don’t want to forecast the bottom. I want to see the market bottom on its own,” the chair and chief executive of the Omega Family Office said in an interview with CNBC today.

Other countries, including China, have already started announcing retaliatory tariffs on American goods, which is hurting US stocks as well at the time of writing.

Copperman is not buying the dip in US stocks

Cooperman is fully convinced that Trump’s new tariffs on friends and foes alike are a huge “mistake” that could push the US economy into a recession before the end of 2025.

“It’s very clear to me that the President has decided the best way to get inflation, interest rates down is to take a recession,” he added in the CNBC interview.

The billionaire recommended investors to remain cautious in the current environment, urging them to leverage any strength that may materialise in the near term to sell.

Additionally, he confirmed that he’s not even buying weakness at present as “I don’t really trust the environment.”

Cooperman sees the possibility of a further decline in SPX

Leon Cooperman is not investing in US stocks on the pullback as he’s not entirely convinced that we’ve hit a bottom yet.

In fact, investors should brace for more pain as the possibility of significant further downside remains on the table, he argued on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.

Investing in the current macroeconomic environment, the billionaire added, is a risky proposition, adding, “you got to decide how much risk you want to take.”

Cooperman’s view is different from famed investor Jim Cramer, who’s been naming stocks to buy on the Trump-driven decline in recent weeks.

Just days ago, the former hedge fund manager recommended sticking to domestic companies with pricing power amidst the present macro backdrop.

Trump’s view on the tariffs-driven market sell-off

From November through February, the US stocks celebrated Donald Trump’s return to the White House as he was broadly expected to favour pro-business policies.

But recent developments on the tariffs front are pushing the United States towards a self-inflicted “economic nuclear winter,” according to billionaire investor Bill Ackman.

Slapping significant and disproportionate duties on imported products will “destroy confidence in our country as a trading partner,” Ackman wrote in an X post on Monday.

Despite broad-based criticism, however, President Trump remains resolute on tariffs, saying, “I don’t want anything [stocks] to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”