For what it’s worth — which could be a lot if the last several months were any indication — Wall Street’s most famous bear isn’t inclined to increase his year-end target for the S&P just because everyone else is. Or just because valuations have expanded.

Unless there’s a material improvement in the overall earnings picture, Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson is sticking with 4,500 SPX. That’d represent a double-digit decline from current levels, not far fetched by any stretch in the near-term (stocks tend to correct by 10% at least once per year) but perhaps questionable in the context of a rally some argue is fueled by secular shifts in both the macro and policy realms.

In his latest, Wilson noted (again) that the vast majority of the rally since late October is attributable to re-rating. He’s not about to jump aboard that bandwagon. Not now. “A lot of folks have raised their price targets because of higher multiples,” he told Bloomberg Radio on Tuesday. “We’re not willing to do that.”

Mike’s recalcitrance came as Savita Subramanian effectively tripled down on what’s now one of (and probably the) most bullish calls on the Street. BofA now sees aggregate index EPS of $250 in 2024 and $275 in 2025. The latter effectively means Subramanian’s new, 5,400 target is “trading” on a 19.5x forward multiple.

Subramanian comes across as increasingly bullish on AI, where a “virtuous cycle” may be developing. “Companies delivered another strong beat in Q4 and our economists raised their 2024 GDP forecast to +2.7% YoY,” she said Tuesday. The 1.3ppt increase from the bank’s previous GDP projection equates to “a 5ppt boost to EPS growth, all else equal.”

The table above is the detailed version of BofA’s outlook for corporate America, which, having completed “a transition year” in 2023, has “adjusted to the new higher rate environment.” According to Subramanian, EPS “undergrew” by 3ppt last year, “which should be recouped in 2024.”

The more bullish profit outlook came just two business days after Subramanian released a short note addressing a series of client questions around her outlook which is starkly at odds both with Wilson’s relatively downbeat view and the overtly cautious musings of rocket scientist-turned celebrity strategist Marko Kolanovic, who on Monday reiterated long-standing concerns about the rally and a lot of other things besides.

It’s hard to know who to side with, frankly. There was a time when I would’ve amplified the bearish message without so much as a second thought, being the overtly pessimistic soul that I am. But as the years went on, I couldn’t happily countenance the sometimes glaring disparity between my outward penchant for skeptical market assessments and my own investments which, like pretty much everyone else’s, benefit more from rising asset prices than selloffs. I felt like I was betting against my own future, but more importantly, I felt like I was being disingenuous.

So, nowadays, I try to call it strictly as it see it without letting my infallibly contemptuous world view encroach unduly on my market editorials (my other editorials are another matter entirely). In the current context, that means I still believe a correction’s highly probable at some point in the relatively near future, but I’d be a buyer of that dip almost irrespective of what prompts it. The end of the financial universe marked the beginning of history’s longest bull market, after all. And a literal plague presaged one of the single-most spectacular asset booms in living memory.

If the end of the world (financial and otherwise) wasn’t enough to permanently cripple equities, I’m not sure what is. As long as monetary policy’s in the business of preventing creative destruction, betting on some manner of “great reset” — a grand purge of misallocated capital — is a fool’s errand.

“I believe the market sees [a] ‘loose-policy asymmetry’,” Nomura’s Charlie McElligott wrote Tuesday. Traders, he suggested, believe the Fed’s willing “to let inflation stall above target, yet still cut [rates] multiple times by year-end regardless” against virtually no chance of another hike. “Hence [multiple] assets simultaneously making all-time highs in recent days, as you’ve been given a green light to run ‘high-spec’ without fear of repercussion” from a Fed that’s “clearly no longer concerned about the risk” of a positive wealth effect rekindling “demand-side inflation.”

Even Wilson, obstinate though he may be, conceded that the current frenzy “doesn’t have to end in tears.”