Fear of missing out, chasing up! The global stock market hit a new high in more than a year, but some analysts "poured cold water": a big rise was followed by a big fall...

On Friday, global stock markets saw their best performance in over two months.

The MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) rose 3% this week, the largest increase since the end of March, and the index has climbed for three consecutive weeks, reaching a 14-month high on Friday.

Overnight, the S&P 500 rose for the sixth consecutive day, marking the longest winning streak since November 2021, and closed at its highest level since April 2022. On Friday, Asian stock markets generally rose, European stock markets climbed, and US stock futures stabilized.

The market is betting that the Federal Reserve will end the tightening cycle as soon as possible after pausing rate hikes this week, which has boosted investors' risk appetite. At the same time, expectations of positive news from China have also strengthened, helping to drive the performance of European mining, energy, and some luxury stocks on Friday.

Bank of America: Investors "Chasing the Bull Market"

Bank of America believes that the continuous rise of the US stock market is due to investors "chasing the bull market".

On Friday, Bank of America's global research cited data from US fund research firm EPFR, which showed that US investors bought $22.3 billion in stocks and withdrew $37.9 billion from cash assets in the week ending Wednesday, the first outflow in eight weeks.

Bank of America said, "As investors chase the bull market, the stock market is experiencing a bubble, and the sentiment of retail investors is rising."

The bank said that the US stock market has seen a cumulative inflow of $38 billion in the past three weeks, the strongest momentum since October 2022, and technology funds have seen a cumulative inflow of $19 billion in the past eight weeks, the strongest momentum since March 2021.

Barclays Bank also cited EPFR data, which showed that US stock fund inflows were the largest since November last year, and all industries except the energy sector saw inflows.

Global stock funds receive the largest inflows in 12 weeks

Another set of institutional data shows that global stock funds have seen the largest inflows in 12 weeks as the market expects weak US inflation data to prompt the Federal Reserve to temporarily pause rate hikes.

According to data from Lipper, a fund analysis company under Refinitiv, investors net invested $16.18 billion in global stock funds in the week ending June 14, almost offsetting the net sales of $17.69 billion in the previous week.

Among them, US stock funds saw a net inflow of $18.85 billion, and Asian stock funds saw a net inflow of $723 million. In contrast, European funds saw a net outflow for the third consecutive week, totaling about $3.43 billion.

At the same time, after seven consecutive weeks of inflows, money market funds saw an outflow of $33.52 billion. In the global bond fund category, about $7.54 billion of funds flowed in, with net inflows for 13 consecutive weeks.

In commodity funds, precious metal funds suffered net sales for the third consecutive week, totaling about $343 million. On the other hand, energy funds received $35 million in funds after experiencing $56 million in outflows the previous week.

Data from emerging market funds (24,003) shows that after three consecutive weeks of outflows, equity funds received $212 million in funds; bond funds also received about $19 million in funds, with net inflows for the second consecutive week.

Analyst "pours cold water" on the market: a big drop is coming after the big rise in US stocks

Last week, the S&P 500 rose by 20% from its low point in October last year, entering a technical bull market.

However, Michael Hartnett, a Bank of America strategist who correctly predicted the sell-off in US stocks last year, said this is not the beginning of a new bull market in US stocks.

In Friday's Investor Strategy Weekly, Hartnett said he did not believe this was the start of a "brand new shiny bull market," and that the current market looks more like 2000 or 2008, "with a big rise before a big drop."

He expects the S&P 500 to rise by a maximum of 150 points from now on, and then fall by 300 points by Labor Day on September 4. On Thursday, the S&P 500 closed at 4,425.84.

Hartnett predicted in February that the S&P 500 would fall to 3,800 points by March 8, but this prediction did not come true due to the surge in technology stocks. He said that bears like him made the wrong prediction in the first half of the year because the US economy avoided recession and credit tightening, and he called the rebound in AI-driven technology stocks an "unexpected event."

He wrote that the stock market can remain high and credit spreads can remain low until the Federal Reserve "reintroduces fear" by raising interest rate targets and a recession signal with unemployment rates exceeding 4%.

Meanwhile, strategists such as Beata Manthey of Citigroup Group said that the performance of the US market may continue to outperform European stocks, despite the rebound being driven by relatively few stocks.

Citigroup strategists said in a report:

"We found that only a small number of stocks leading the way is not a reason for a sell-off market; after a small number of stocks rise, the average stock trading tends to rise, although volatility will also rise."