Canaccord Genuity chief market strategist Tony Dwyer is one of Wall Street’s biggest bulls, and he’s getting even more bullish thanks to what he calls an “easy Fed.”
“I don’t think the Fed is going to raise rates potentially for years.”
On Monday, Dwyer raised his 2020 outlook for the S&P 500 by another 90 points to 3,440. That’s a little less than 10% higher than where the index is currently (it closed at 3,141 points Wednesday). The two reasons for Dwyer’s even more optimistic outlook: an easy Federal Reserve as far as low interest rates, and perpetually low inflation.
“Low inflation equals an easy Fed,” Dwyer said during an interview on CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Monday. “I don’t think the Fed is going to raise rates potentially for years.”
Dwyer’s prediction was spot on Wednesday, as the Fed revealed it would keep its benchmark interest rate steady after three previous cuts in 2019. To be fair, pretty much everyone in the know saw the pause coming.
What may be even more interesting is that Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the central bank could keep rates where they are currently, a range between 1.5% and 1.75%, through all of 2020. And that helps Dwyer’s case for a strong S&P 500 over the next 12 months.
“The 2019 bull story that we have come up with was that there was going to be a lagged effect of policy tightening in 2018,” Dwyer explained. “And you were going to see an economic slowdown that didn’t end up in a recession because of a good consumer, but was slow enough. It got the Fed to go from tightening to easing. Now, we’re looking for this reacceleration.”
He went on to call the current market situation “extraordinary.”
And Dwyer’s not worried about the trade war between the U.S. and China, either, because the S&P 500 has soared 25% this year despite the markets swaying on every new tidbit of news from negotiations.
It’s all about easy monetary policy, Dwyer argues, and because of the Fed, investors don’t have much to worry about right now.
“The story for 2020 is going to be … better growth with a neutral Fed,” Dwyer said.
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