It’s hard to imagine much more upside for the current stock market, according to Bank of America. “The S & P 500 is statistically expensive on almost every metric,” Savita Subramanian, the firm’s equity and quant strategist, wrote Friday. “But this is hardly new news. On basic math, today’s price to normalized EPS ratio of 27x implies 1% price returns [per annum] over the next decade.” Of course, the index comprises “higher quality, less levered and more asset-light” companies than it has in the past, meaning the return forecasts when compared with prior decades are “likely too punitive,” she noted. Regardless, Subramanian noted sentiment and positioning indicators have become “dangerously bullish” for the market, especially given possible risks around tariffs and higher bond yields that could crush earnings growth next year. Perhaps as a result, she said she will stick to the equal-weighted index over the cap-weighted S & P 500 as an investment call, given the “pockets of euphoria” around growth expectations for the ” Magnificent Seven ” stocks, as well as greater inflows into a broader array of stocks expected in President-elect Donald Trump’s second term. .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 “Overall, we see limited near-term upside to the cap-weighted S & P 500 and prefer the equal-weighted index, but our bear market signposts — the triggers that typically precede an S & P 500 peak — are not signaling elevated risks of an imminent bear market,” she wrote. The strategist updated her S & P 500 year-end target to 6,000. She began the year with her target at 5,000, and it rose to 5,400 in March. It’s a milestone the broader index already topped earlier this month in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory, though it has since dipped as the postelection rally lost steam. The S & P 500 was last trading around 5,880.
