“…according to Eddy Elfenbein”

From Bloomberg:

Despite the S&P 500 Index having soared 13.1 percent in the first three months of 2018, its best quarterly performance since 2009, those who are paid large sums to figure out where stocks go next are hesitant to get all bulled up. The median estimate of 24 strategists surveyed by Bloomberg is for the S&P 500 to gain only an additional 4 percent by the end of the year, rising to 2,950 from about 2,834 on Friday. That price target isn’t much different from the 2,913 median estimate back in early January. Count BlackRock as one firm that feels the easy money has been made in risk assets such as equities. “We see a repeat as unlikely and a narrower path for a grind higher,” Richard Turnhill, the firm’s global chief investment strategist, wrote in a research report. “The global economy must remain strong enough to quell recession fears but weak enough to keep policy makers on hold” to keep the rally in risk assets going. That’s a tough needle to thread. In reality, it’s been a relatively tough market for stocks the last 15 months. Consider that even with the big gains last quarter, at 2,867.24 on Tuesday the S&P 500 is still below its closing high of 2,872.87 in January 2018, let alone the record of 2,930.75 in September. And the only reason stocks are as high as they are is because of the tech sector, according to Eddy Elfenbein, a money manager who writes the Crossing Wall Street blog. “Many sectors and individual stocks never made new highs, and they’re still well below their January 2018 peak,” Elfenbein wrote. “For example, the S&P 500 Value Index never made a new high. It’s currently 6 percent below its peak from 14 months ago. The S&P 500 High Beta Index also never made a new high. The Consumer Staples sector is way down from its peak. The S&P 500 Industrials also never made a new high.”

Posted by on April 5th, 2019 at 4:01 pm


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