Tug of War Into Year End

Today in the podcast, we update our thoughts on the broader US equity market outlook as well as bigger picture positioning trades. Three big things you need to know: First, there’s no change to our year-end 2022 S&P 500 target of 4,200 or our 2023 S&P 500 EPS forecast of $212, though we have tweaked our 2022 S&P 500 EPS forecast up to $218 from $214. Second, we continue to anticipate choppy conditions through year end, in which stocks are caught in a tug of war between deeply bearish sentiment and ongoing concerns about further Fed tightening and its longer-term economic ramifications and downward earnings revisions. The mid-term elections remain a major headache, but may ultimately still be a positive catalyst. Third, we continue to prefer US equities over non-US equities and Small Cap over Large Cap. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the pause in Growth leadership persist in the near term, but still like Growth over Value longer term given that we expect a sluggish economic backdrop to be the price markets will have to pay for a short/shallow economic downturn.