BlackRock's chief investment officer Rick Rieder thinks U.S. stocks still have room to run, and he is pointing to one group of companies to make his case. Rieder oversees roughly $2.4 trillio
BlackRock's chief investment officer Rick Rieder thinks U.S. stocks still have room to run, and he is pointing to one group of companies to make his case.
Rieder oversees roughly $2.4 trillion in assets at BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. He also sits on the Alphabet/Google Investment Advisory Committee, making his market calls among the most closely watched on Wall Street.
Speaking at the CNBC CEO Council Summit, Rieder described the current market as an "extraordinary period of time," where stock prices are climbing to new all-time highs while valuation multiples are actually coming down, particularly in technology and semiconductors.
Related: Elon Musk has blunt one-word response to U.S.-China rivalry
For Rieder, the engine behind the rally is simple. Companies are making more money.
"I was looking this morning at the projected earnings growth, talking about 20%-plus earnings growth. That is incredible," he said.
He did flag risks. Rieder said he is watching for crowding, situations where too many investors pile into the same stocks, as a potential pressure point.
"I worry about crowding in different markets, not just in overall markets, but in single-name stocks where you see more momentum trading than I've ever seen before," he added.
Despite the caution, Rieder singled out the Magnificent 7, the group of mega-cap technology companies that has dominated market returns in recent years, as a place where valuations still make sense.
"You're talking about a 26x multiple for companies that are throwing off earnings growth of 30%-40%," he said.
By that logic, investors are not overpaying. They are buying into genuinely fast-growing businesses.
Rieder's broader read on markets is straightforward: the fundamentals support staying invested. Cash continues flowing into equities, buyback activity remains strong, and even with a heavy IPO calendar ahead, the technical picture holds up.
"I think you've got to stay in it. And I think the equity market will probably continue to do okay," he said.
Rieder's bullish outlook on equities does not exist in isolation from digital assets. BlackRock has become one of the largest players in institutional crypto through its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which now holds 845,256 BTC as of June 8.
But Rieder himself has been measured about how much crypto belongs in a portfolio. Speaking on CNBC in September 2025, he said a 5% Bitcoin allocation seems "high" to him.
"Gold strikes me today as a better currency hedge. Bitcoin tends to trade with volatility and tends to trade with the Nasdaq. So we're running considerably lower than that in crypto," Rieder had said.
He did not dismiss Bitcoin's long-term case. He framed it as a meaningful investment vehicle, just one that behaves more like a risk asset than a safe haven, which shapes how much of it belongs in a diversified portfolio.
