Fundstrat’s Tom Lee is about to raise his year-end forecast for the S&P 500

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, who’s been correctly nailing the stock market for the past few years, hinted that he was about to hike his year-end S & P 500 target even with the benchmark at record highs. In a Bloomberg interview on the Odd Lots podcast Monday, the head of research and co-founder at Fundstrat said strong earnings, coupled with trillions in cash that’s still on the sidelines, could power the market rally further — with the S & P 500 potentially reaching 5,800 by year-end. “Originally, we said earnings could be $270, and we put like an 18 multiple on that. 2025 earnings no longer look like $270. It looks more like $285. And as … interest rates moved up, the PE should be higher. So let’s say 20 is a more appropriate PE multiple or even 21. Then you get into the 5,800-ish level,” Lee said in the interview. Lee’s 5,800 call would represent another 6% gain for the S & P 500 from current levels. The market has already surpassed his previous target of 5,200, which he made in December. The large-cap equity benchmark has advanced almost 15% this year after notching 31 record closes. .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 year to date The widely followed strategist stood out as one of the few on Wall Street who correctly foresaw the market comeback from the pandemic sell-off in 2020 and the gains in 2023 and 2024 due to the enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence. Lee believes a strong force that could help lift the market is the $6 trillion in cash that’s in money market funds. “The market is starved for cash,” he said. “FINRA margin debt is 20% below where it was in October 2021. So there isn’t a lot of money sloshing in the stock market. I know it’s weird because we’re at record highs. So if there is money actively trading, it’s just buying the high volume sectors, which is tech.” “If monetary policy eases or people are more convinced of it, then breadth expansion is going to be pretty fierce later this year,” he said. Lee would join a host of others on Wall Street who have recently raised their S & P 500 targets. On June 14, Goldman Sachs increased its price target on the S & P to 5,600. Evercore ISI on June 17 hiked its outlook to 6,000 — the highest on the Street, according to the CNBC Market Strategist Survey — from 4,750. Citigroup on June 18 lifted its objective to 5,600 from 5,100. Lee told Bloomberg he will officially update his market outlook at the end of June.