Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson, previously bearish on the growth prospects of the S&P 500 (^GSPC), has now turned bullish on the index’s potential. Once concerned about a potential downturn due to economic uncertainty, Wilson has now revised his target from 4,500 and upgraded it to 5,400.
Yahoo Finance’s Brad Smith and Seana Smith break down the details.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.
This post was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
One of Wall Street’s most prominent bearish analysts changing his tune.
Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson, who previously predicted that the S and P 500 would be down 15% by December.
Now boosting his target from 4500 to 5400 that puts his forecast more in line with some of the most bullish Wall Street analysts.
As recently as last month, Wilson said he was staying away from making any big calls due to economic uncertainty.
And there you’re taking a look at some of those other bullish S and P 500 year end forecasts.
I mean, the, the bullish tenor, the, the, the, I mean, love AAD instead of the hater Rae, if you will, is certainly flowing heavily on the street today, you are any researcher out with a market call from da 40,000 to infinity and beyond channeling buzz light year there.
So there is a lot of positivity that’s falling right now.
Sure is.
And I think a lot of people are waiting for whether or not Mike Wilson and his team were going to come around to really see what the market’s momentum is and whether or not he was going to upgrade to a certain extent, 20% that might have taken some people by surprise.
But he lays out compelling reasons as to why he’s coming around.
And now seeing higher highs at least or right now seeing to that because he actually sees 5400.
So not much of a move here to to the upset.
But when it comes to why he is now seeing more than 20% move to the upside.
And then when he initially saw previously, it’s backed by that robust outlook for corporate earnings.
The thing that we have been talking about time and time again where he’s seeing those investment opportunities right now, they upgraded industrials to overweight.
They write given improving earnings revisions and structural drivers that they believe the recent underperformance offers an attractive entry point there.
And then also they maintain long exposure to certain defensive areas to hedge against the risk of slowing growth.
So a bit of a bears tone maybe a little bit within this report with the consumer staples, utilities in particular.
Uh we certainly have started to see those two sectors catch a bit here with investors over the last couple of weeks, in particular utilities, you, you and I have talked about it a number of times.
So again, the street getting more and more bullish here in terms of that upside projection before the end of the year, Mike Wilson definitely turning a bit more bullish far though from being the most bullish on the street.
Clearly, that would have been quite the reversal.
I mean, I think the remarkable thing is too, we’re getting these calls even ahead of the company that is said to be the bellwether, not just for the general a trade, but perhaps for a lot of the wind and sales in the broader markets here.
And their report set to come on Wednesday and that is NVIDIA here.
So these calls coming even ahead of that.
And that actually points me back to what Giardini had said within their research, the Q 1 2024 Ernie season is over.
They say even though we’ve got some retail companies, even though we’ve got a video coming forward.
And here’s why they said that early on the analyst consensus estimate for the S and P 500 eps applied an increase of just 1.2% year over year for the quarter.
The actual result was a 6.3% increase.
So essentially saying, you know what, let’s declare victory on this, let’s move forward.
Let’s look out to the rest of this year and continuing to look towards some of those new record highs that are potential.
Um even after this earnings season.
Yeah, here we are today, we’ve got the S and P pushing even further above 5300 closing just above that level on Friday.
