About the Speaker

Investors are becoming increasingly fearful of a rising wall of worry that may trigger a new decline in the equity markets. Specifically, the S&P 500 gained more than 26% from the recent April low through late July, while undergoing a near-halving of 2025 EPS growth projections that pushed the S&P 500’s P/E on forward EPS to a level that exceeds more than two standard deviations above the 20-year mean. In addition, from a contrarian perspective, investors point out that the CNN Fear/Greed Index recently registered “Extreme Greed,” even though adverse effects from tariffs on inflation and earnings have been delayed but certainly not eliminated. Finally, the equity market is approaching the most challenging seasonal period of the year (August through October). Is it time to buy or bail? In this presentation, Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, will discuss CFRA’s forecast for the remainder of the year, justify his 6,580 year-end 2025 target for the S&P 500, and share typically encouraging equity returns during the fourth year of bull markets since WWII.