Abby Joseph Cohen, Goldman Sachs’ celebrity market strategist, during a television appearance Thursday said the S&P 500 Index may rise as high as 1,100 this year, although she warned the recovery could be choppy.
“We do think the new bull market has begun,“ Cohen told the cable channel CNBC. “It may prove that it began in March. Clearly many people were looking for better signs on the economy, and now we’re getting them.“
She said Goldman’s strategy team thinks the S&P 500 should trade in a range of 1,050 to 1,100 toward the end of this year. The S&P 500 was trading around 1,000 late Thursday. The index has bounced back strongly since the March lows and is now up more than 10% since the start of the year.
Cohen is known as one of Wall Street’s most bullish forecasters, and she gained widespread fame in the 1990s for calling the multiyear rally.
The strategist on Thursday said that although not every economic sign is positive, investors have seen improvement in key areas such as the job market and business inventories. Still, she thinks the unemployment situation will improve in an erratic fashion, she said.
“We are beginning to see improvement even in the labor market, where it appears that the job losses are slowing and there is some job creation going on,“ Cohen noted. “But let’s keep in mind that labor markets are unlikely to turn all at once or on a dime. We have many more months of difficult labor situation ahead even if the recession ... is almost over.
The Labor Department on Thursday said jobless claims dropped by 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 550,000 in the latest week.
Cohen said her bullish outlook is based on corporate profits that are in the process of recovering. She said earnings of $75 a share for the S&P 500 next year are “reasonable” and that the S&P 500 at 1,050 would put the price-to-earnings ratio at about 14.
“We do think that’s achievable, but it doesn’t mean we get there in a straight shot,“ Cohen told CNBC.
“Even if this is the new bull market, don’t expect it to look like a ‘V.‘ Expect it to look like a series of upward steps,“ she added.
Looking ahead, she expects stocks to perform better than bonds as the economy gets back on its feet, she said. Within the stock market, Cohen said she favors cyclical sectors such as energy, technology and financials.
Source: MarketWatch.com
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