One of Wall Street’s most bearish strategists has had a reality check.
Citigroup Inc.’s Tobias Levkovich has raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 index to 3,300 from 2,900 thanks to the impact of “unbridled” Federal Reserve easing, negative real rates and the breach of technical resistance levels. That moves his index outlook from joint-second-last place to just above the median target of 3,200 among strategists surveyed by Bloomberg.
It is Levkovich’s second bump up in target for the U.S. equity benchmark in as many months, though still points to downside as the index closed at 3,431 on Monday. Futures rose 0.4% as of 7:46 a.m. in New York. Citi’s chief U.S. equity strategist joins peers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and RBC Capital Markets, who’ve upped their forecasts in recent months.
“The pushback to our upward adjustments will involve claims of capitulation and a lack of fortitude/consistency,” Levkovich wrote in an Aug. 24 note. “However, we appear to be in one of those periods where technicals seem to overwhelm fundamentals and standing in the way of that might only indicate our intransigence.”
While Levkovich said he worried that investors have become overly complacent, ignoring many issues that would have been disruptive in the past -- and that valuations have become unattractive -- he acknowledged that earnings have been better than expected and progress on the health crisis will be welcomed.
“We still think the market may be ahead of itself but the Fed will do ‘whatever it takes’ to prevent U.S. stocks declining by teen-like percentages,” the strategist wrote. “Is the S&P 500 ready to drop 500 points? No.”
This story was provided by Bloomberg News.