The market’s “pessimistic” strategist turned positive
Michael Wilson, one of Wall Street’s prominent strategists, changed the outlook for US stocks to positive. Wilson increased his S&P 500 target from 4,500 to 5,400 points.
Morgan Stanley‘s Michael Wilson announced that he currently forecasts the S&P 500 to rise 2 percent by June 2025.
As the markets continued to recover, Wilson, whose decline outlook in 2023 did not come true, increased his S&P 500 target from 4,500 to 5,400 points. Deutsche Bank AG strategists also increased the end-2024 target for the index from 5,100 to 5,500 on Friday.
“In the US, we forecast strong EPS growth despite moderate discounting pressure,” Wilson said in a note on Sunday sharing second-half views on various assets from Morgan Stanley.
In recent months, even as the index hit a series of record highs, Wilson repeatedly stuck to the 4,500-point target he set for the S&P 500 and said in March that there was no justification for raising the index’s outlook in the absence of broad earnings growth.
On the other hand, Wilson announced last month that he was refraining from making ambitious predictions about the direction of the index, given the increasing economic uncertainty. Overall, the bank expects a “favorable macro environment” that will support risk assets in the second half of the year, although Wilson reiterated his view that it becomes harder to predict wider outcomes for the economy as data becomes more volatile.