Move over, Savita.

For nearly a month, BofA’s 5,400 year-end target for the S&P counted as the most optimistic around. No longer. Savita Subramanian’s three-week reign as the most bullish strategist on Wall Street is over. That title now belongs, however briefly, to SocGen’s Manish Kabra, who this week lifted his target to 5,500.

Back in September, Kabra said the world’s benchmark risk asset par excellence might rally to 4,750 by the end of 2023, only to sell off sharply in Q2 of this year before recovering to close 2024 somewhere near that same 4,750 level. In raising his year-end target, Kabra wrote that “the macro backdrop continues to improve in the US.” He cited a “reshoring boom” which SocGen dates to the second half of 2022, the AI frenzy and incremental improvement in credit conditions early this year.

“We now see the S&P 500 reaching 5,500 by the end of 2024 — another 6% upside,” Kabra wrote, adding that SocGen does expect a minor correction (~5%) in Q3, when earnings growth for mega-cap tech should slow. Any setback over the summer will be brief, though, according to the bank. Momentum should resume after the election, Kabra said.

The table above shows SocGen’s targets across global benchmarks. The bank’s projecting S&P 6,000 in 2026, for whatever that’s worth (14%, if it pans out).

The FOMC rally (I measure using decision day and the session after) was the third in the last four meetings.

As discussed at some length here on Wednesday afternoon, critics were aghast at Jerome Powell’s “failure” to push back against the equity rally. Accusations of politicization are now commonplace.

The simple chart above makes clear the extent to which equities were emboldened by the Fed’s shift, which began with the November policy gathering.

The March FOMC gains put Wall Street’s remaining bears even further underwater with their year-end S&P targets. It’d be gratuitous to mention any names, but suffice to say anything below 4,750 SPX telegraphs a 10% correction that “sticks,” so to speak. Either that, or a lucky break towards year-end. The average target’s around 4,950.

Of course, anything can happen. It wouldn’t be surprising (at all) to see the S&P close out the year 15% or 20% lower than current levels. The point’s just to underscore the rapidity and implacable nature of the current melt-up.

The figure above is the rolling five-month calculation. This is an unappeasable rally.

I try to be as charitable as I can possibly be with bears. God knows I try. But the S&P’s notched 20 records so far in 2024.

As if bears’ lives needed to get any harder, betting against the rally going forward will be tantamount to fighting the Fed. And the ECB. And the BoE. All of whom are likely to start cutting rates within months.

Thoughts and prayers.