Wall Street strategists are urging clients to buy stocks at a discount after Thursday’s severe selloff. Mike Wilson, chief US equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, called it “the place where you should be adding risk over the next two to three weeks,” despite the S&P 500 Index falling 4.4% and the Nasdaq 100 Index tumbling 6.4%. Wilson remains confident US stocks will rally and maintains his target for the S&P 500 to reach 8,000 by year-end, implying an 8.4% gain from Friday’s close.
Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research, views the decline as a correction rather than a collapse of the AI trade, with a year-end S&P 500 target of 7,900. He favors healthcare stocks while Wilson recommends consumer-focused equities, especially if interest rates and oil prices keep falling. Jonathan Golub, chief equity strategist at Seaport Global Holdings, sees the benchmark ending at 8,200 and called himself “an unequivocal buyer.”
The rout erased $3 trillion in market value from the S&P 500 by Thursday’s close, and the benchmark remains down 2.5% since polls closed Tuesday. The average year-end target among strategists is 7,973. However, weakness in the AI trade poses an obstacle, with the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index down 36% from a June peak.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing