(Yahoo!Finance) - “The Federal Reserve isn’t trying to kill the economy, it’s just trying to end free money,” said veteran strategist John Stoltzfus.
“Free money is bad in our view in that it encourages all kinds of speculation, it inflates asset classes...and it creates instability in the economy,” added Oppenheimer’s chief asset management strategist.
Stoltzfus’ comments come on the heels of last month’s jobs data highlighting continued tight labor market conditions. Market watchers see the latest print as an ‘all clear’ signal for the Fed to keep hiking rates aggressively in order to tame inflation.
“Looks like July will be another 75 [bps], based on the unemployment numbers we had today. It looks like the economy can take it,” said the strategist.
Stoltzfus — known for being one of the biggest bulls on Wall Street — recently scaled back his optimism for the S&P 500 year-end target. He and his team cut back their forecast for the benchmark index to 4,800 from 5,330. Last week, S&P 500 (^GSPC) closed out its worst first half of the year since 1970.
"We've got high levels of inflation, 40 years high... so when you look at it, it's how far can equities go in the rallies," said Stoltzfus. "At 4800 it essentially implies a fairly flat year."
The strategist is still bullish on U.S stocks, and the consumer.
"The U.S. consumer when times are tough, gets the vacuum cleaner out, looks for coins behind the seat of the automobile, behind the sofa, and keeps spending to some degree. Not necessarily robust, but more resilient than naysayers would ever think,” he said.
By Ines Ferré · Markets Reporter
