On Monday, Wall Street’s most prominent bear adopted a relatively constructive take on US equities.

In a sweeping mid-year update, Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson engaged in a kind of mark-to-market exercise, raising his 12-month S&P target to 5,400 from 4,500.

That left JPMorgan as the lone bearish holdout among the majors. If you were wondering whether Marko Kolanovic’s prepared to capitulate on his cautious stance, the answer’s a hard “no.”

“With very high valuations (as well as tight credit spreads and low levels of volatility), we do not see equities as attractive investments at the moment and we don’t see a reason to change our stance,” analysts led by Kolanovic wrote.

You gotta admire the conviction. If you’re impressed by fortitude in the face of adversity, Marko’s your guy. He’s exhibited exactly no signs of backtracking on his long-held bearish bent despite a relentlessly bullish tape.

Monday’s missive was more of the same in that regard. “Rates are restrictive and likely to stay so for longer, inflation readings have been higher than expected (on average), investor positioning and valuations are high, lower-income cohorts of consumers are showing stress, and geopolitical uncertainty is at the highest level in decades,” JPMorgan’s strategists wrote.

I’m not inclined to argue with that, and even if I were, I couldn’t: It’s all true. But it hasn’t translated into equity downside, but for a fleeting 5% pullback in April.

If you ask Kolanovic, “AI chips” (as he put it Monday) can’t “compensate” for the bevy of “traditional market challenges that historically worked against the cycle.” He went as far as to call AI a “narrow theme.”

In light of the above, JPMorgan maintained their defensive portfolio tilt, which includes an Underweight in equities and credit and Overweights in commodities and cash.

If we’re being fair (and I try to be), you could’ve done a lot worse than cash and commodities this year. T-bills get you 5% riskless and commodities were up 10% YTD through last week.