The outlook for large-cap, US corporate equities — “the stocks,” if you like — remains constructive.

That’s according to Goldman’s David Kostin who, while not the biggest bull on Wall Street, is adept at avoiding the only mistake you can’t make as a sell-side equity strategist: Being a bear in a bull market.

Goldman’s economics team now expects rate cuts at all three of this year’s remaining FOMC meetings, and another pair of cuts (at least) in 2026. I can’t help but mention that the house Fed call belongs to Jan Hatzius who Donald Trump not-so-gently suggested should be fired last month.

The figure above gives you a sense of how Hatzius’s forecasts for US growth measure up to the collective wisdom of other economists. In short: Goldman’s econ team is actually above the blue-chip consensus for 2025 and not far off it for 2026. There’s no conspiracy. (Or I guess I should say there probably are conspiracies, plural, but they don’t involve the research department unfairly smearing Trump’s economy.)

Here’s the thing: Rate cuts with i) growth still tracking more or less at trend for a highly-advanced economy, ii) aggregate earnings growth running somewhere between 7% and 10% (and that figure’s obviously inflated by big-tech) and iii) margins at or near record highs, makes for a pretty favorable setup for stocks.

“As the economy moves through the worst of the tariff impacts we expect a re-acceleration of growth in 2026 and imminent Fed cuts will support further gains for US equities,” Kostin wrote in his latest.

The light blue line in the figure above shows you the performance of the S&P in historical instances where the Fed resumed cutting rates after a six-month pause and the economy continued to grow.

To be sure, you can’t do statistics with “n=4.” “N=8” doesn’t work either. You need something like “n=100” at least, but since we’re talking about recessions in a country that’s only two and half centuries old, the sample size is going to be small. It is what it is.

And look: You don’t need statistics to help you infer that lowering the cost of money by 150bps over 16 months (market pricing suggests a return to neutral by year-end 2026) is likely to bolster stock prices in the absence of an economic downturn.

“During the last 40 years, the S&P 500 has typically generated positive returns following the resumption of Fed cutting cycles during which the economy continued to grow,” Kostin went on. He expects the benchmark to flirt with 7,000 (SPX 6900) by mid-2026.

On Monday, SocGen’s Manish Kabra reiterated his view that there’s upside to SPX 7300 by May of 2026, when Jerome Powell, assuming he’s not forced out sooner, will be shown the door at the Fed.

“Initial jobless claims [have been] in a healthy range of 200-250,000 over past three years,” Kabra remarked. “Hiring has slowed but firing is not there. Initial claims are >300,000 six months before a recession.”