In a wide-ranging interview on CNBC, Leon Cooperman, chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, explained that he doe snot see the market as ‘cheap’ or ‘expensive’ currently but warns that traditional value-manager-driven strategies face difficulties because ” all these quantitative trading systems are destroying the structure of the market…particularly that group that buy strength and sells weakness.”

Cooperman goes on to reflect on last week’s mini-crash as being overdone, because “credit was relatively flat” but warns that “It’s crazy…selling begets selling because of these quantitative trading systems,” adding that he thinks “all this fixation and fear about interest rates is misplaced.”

However, he does warn that “the strongest economy in 50 years” could be a problem as “it forces the hand of The Fed.”

Full Transcript

Who knows. I mean basically I think that the whole structure of the market is broken. You know when I came into the let’s put it this way. Whatever success I’ve achieved I think I’ve achieved it because I’ve been very lucky. I have a common sense basically. And I have a strong work ethic. And this whole thing now with all these quantitative trading systems are destroying the structure of the marketyou know particularly that group that buy strength and sells weakness.

So, everyone I know that’s accumulated wealth, whether it’s Warren Buffett, Ken Langone, Mario Gabelli – all friends of mine – I think they made their fortunes that by buying weakness and selling strength. What’s happening now [with the algos] is they’re trend followers and they really are exaggerating the trends up and down. The condition is that normally call for a significant market decline are just simply not present.

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