Citigroup: US stocks rise due to short covering, future gains face risks
Citi strategist Chris Montagu said that the S&P 500 index had its best weekly performance in a year last week, mainly driven by investors profiting from locking in bearish positions. This indicates that the index may not have further room for upward movement.
According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Citigroup strategist Chris Montagu said that the S&P 500 index had its best weekly performance in a year last week, mainly driven by investors locking in profits from bearish positions, indicating that the index has no further room for growth.
Due to investors betting that the Federal Reserve has ended its most aggressive rate hike action in 40 years, as well as the decline in US bond yields, the S&P 500 index rose 5.85% last week. However, Chris Montagu pointed out that the overall position of the benchmark stock index contracts tracked last week was still "moderately bearish", with short positions being covered. In a report on November 6th, the strategist stated, "In short, profit-taking leads to cleaner positions, reduced distorted positions, and overall position risk is reduced." "In the short term, it seems unlikely that further market gains will be brought about by short covering."
Michael Wilson, a well-known bear on Wall Street and chief strategist at Morgan Stanley, also holds a similar view. Michael Wilson said on Monday that the current rise in US stocks lacks technical and fundamental support. Due to dim corporate profit prospects, weak macroeconomic data, and deteriorating analyst views, "we find it difficult to be more excited about the year-end rebound." He said that this wave of gains "looks more like a bear market rebound rather than the beginning of a sustained rise." He also stated, "The decline in US bond yields is more related to lower-than-expected issuance scale and weak economic data, rather than an optimistic interpretation of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut earlier next year."
In addition, Chris Montagu stated that the outlook for the Nasdaq 100 index, which is dominated by technology stocks, is becoming more optimistic, with approximately $3 billion of new "risk flow" entering the Nasdaq futures market last week. The strategist stated that the current position is only slightly bearish according to normalization standards, and there has been significant volatility compared to the previous week.