Altimeter Capital Chair and CEO Brad Gerstner said Wednesday that he has reduced exposure on the stock market after this year's rally, but he remains bullish on American companies. "We've taken some risk off the table as prices have gone up, but we're still leaning forward and still bullish on America," Gerstner said on CNBC's " Squawk Box ." The tech investor revealed that his net exposure today is 60%, down from 93% at the beginning of the year. He said that many investors were overly pessimistic about the market and the economy this year, missing out on the gains. "What people have been most mispositioned for is that the world may in fact go back to this normal," he said. "Everybody was in 'crash' positions. The reality is the market has performed quite well this year, despite a regional banking crisis, despite conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, despite all of these other challenges." The S & P 500 is still up 14% this year, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained more than 30%. Both benchmarks dipped into correction territory recently, or falling at least 10% from their record highs. However, as for buying opportunities in technology names, Gerstner cautioned that not all tech is created equal. "If you're a Covid pretender, you haven't gone up this year," he said. "We pulled forward all this demand that was not sustainable." The widely followed investor listed Upstart as one of the companies that enjoyed outsized boost from the pandemic. The lending startup saw shares tank 25% Wednesday after sales for its AI credit tools fell. Gerstner said Robinhood is also in the process of giving back the pandemic benefit. "One of those things was day trading memes that died, right? And so that was just to give back, but it's incumbent upon those companies to adjust. It's hard to adjust," Gerstner said.
