Global Courant
Fundstrat founder Tom Lee has become more bullish on equities, seeing the S&P 500 hit an all-time high before the end of 2023. The widely followed strategist raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 from 4,750 to 4,825. The forecast represents an 8% gain from Friday’s close of 4,450.38 and a new all-time high above the previous all-time high of 4,821. Lee’s forecast is also well above the average year-end forecast of 4,227 from Wall Street strategists, according to CNBC Pro’s market strategist survey, which rounds up the predictions of the top 15 strategists. Lee acknowledged his view is “aggressive,” but the veteran strategist thinks it’s achievable as inflation continues to fall and investors begin to increase their equity exposure from the $5.5 trillion cash currently sitting on the sidelines. “The stock market has been a game of inches all year, with a lot of blocking and tackling. And then periods of market growth,” Lee said in a note. “I think this will still be the case in the second half. So be prepared for volatility. But as we highlighted a few months ago, we entered a ‘buy the dip’ regime, so 2% pullbacks are left generally purchasable.” .SPX YTD mountain S&P 500 The market just finished the first half of the year with flying colors. The S&P 500 was up 15.9% for its best first half since 2019. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 31.7% for its best first half since 1983. The 30-stock Dow added modest gains of 3.8% please. Lee pointed out that history is on his side. Since 1950, of the nine times the S&P 500 saw a gain of more than 10% in the first half and was negative in the previous year, the median gain for the remainder of the year is 12%, which would be a level are at 5,000 for 2023. The founder of Fundstrat was the strategist who correctly guided through the Covid pandemic, as in March 2020 he was one of the first to say buy stocks. 2022, the inflation war is the war the Fed is fighting and seemingly winning,” Lee said. Lee said cyclical stocks should soon take the lead as financial conditions ease.
