Will the S & P 500 be nearer to 5,000 by the end of the year? Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Andrew Slimmon was among some on Wall Street who earlier this year believed so. He first told CNBC in late August that the Wall Street index will reach that level. The S & P 500 closed at 4,193.80 on Tuesday. Although markets have been volatile lately, Slimmon expects the S & P 500 to be closer to 5,000 than 4,000. “If the rates market can just settle down a bit, I remain confident that the equity market will recover and rally into year-end,” he told CNBC. Yields on the 10-year Treasury shot up in recent weeks, rising to the 5% mark in a 16-year high, before inching back down. It was last around 4.91 on Wednesday. But his S & P 500 prediction is predicated on a few factors, Slimmon told CNBC’s ” Squawk Box Asia. ” He said inflation is coming down, which will ease the U.S. Federal Reserve’s hawkishness. Earnings have also “come through,” and he predicts there will be talk of 12% earnings growth for next year. “With decent Q3 earnings reports, quarterly earnings growth would inflect from negative to positive going into 2024,” he said. There’s also a lot of fiscal spending that the U.S. government has already approved — yet another liquidity injection into the economy, Slimmon added. “With so much money sitting out this rally, (consistent with the first year after a bear market) eventually fear would be replaced with FOMO (fear of missing out) and that money would begin to seep back in,” he said. The 5,000 level is significantly higher than what most of Wall Street forecasts , according to the CNBC Market Strategist Survey. Stocks to buy If the market does rally into the year-end, it will be led by the “Magnificent Seven” stocks, said Slimmon, referring to Apple , Amazon , Alphabet , Meta , Microsoft , Nvidia and Tesla . He said Microsoft would be his preferred play, pointing to the tech giant’s 365 Copilot feature, its artificial intelligence supplement to core productivity apps such as Word and Excel. Sales started Wednesday . “They roll out Copilot and Windows will come with Copilot and that will substantially increase the monthly cost of Windows to people that sign up for it. I think there’s going to be tremendous pressure on corporations to include in their package,” Slimmon said. “So I suspect that there will continue to be earnings revisions higher as we get more detail about the companies embracing Copilot. So that to me is a very intriguing near term catalyst,” he added. Nevertheless, Slimmon advised investors to balance their portfolios with value stocks such as those in financials and industrials. He named two stocks to buy: Ameriprise and United Rentals .
