CFRA’s Sam Stovall has emerged as one of the biggest bulls on Wall Street, seeing more room for the S & P 500 to run to a double-digit gain this year. The CFRA chief investment strategist hiked his year-end target for the equity benchmark to 5,415 from 4,940. The new forecast represents a 4% gain from here and a 13.5% return for the full year. This updated target marks one of the highest on the Street, behind only the 5,500 target from John Stoltzfus at Oppenheimer. It is also 6% higher than the average projection of 5,105, according to the CNBC Pro Market Strategist Survey , which rounds up the targets from the top 14 Wall Street strategists. Stovall said he’s encouraged by this strong earnings season as well as data showing easing inflation. “What is encouraging is we’re continuing to see earnings come in better than expected not only for 2024, but also now a near 15% projected advance for 2025,” Stovall said on CNBC’s ” Squawk Box ” on Friday. “We’re seeing the economy show trends that we could be seeing inflation come down a bit further.” .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 The S & P 500 is up more than 9% this year, driven by the continuous rally in many megacap tech names. The market got a boost recently after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell deemed it “unlikely” that the central bank’s next policy move would be a rate hike. “I think this relief rally has been continuing triggered by Fed Chair Powell’s comments that a rate hike is highly unlikely. So I think this bull market is maintaining its upward trajectory and will do so over the coming 12 months,” Stovall said. Stovall sees the S & P 500 hitting 5,610 in the next 12 months, which would translate into a 7.6% gain from Thursday’s close of 5,214. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
