The Blubber

Per CNBC

While some financial institutions, banks, and economists are watching out for a bull run, Citi says otherwise and that we aren't fully in a bull market yet. This comes as the bank reportedly believes that the market would return to 4,000.

Citi also shared about the involvement of AI in the market and how the "Fed hiking cycle" was ending. It was also noted that the market could go back to neutral but did give emphasis on how the tech sector was specifically strong.

Citi: “With the end of the Fed hiking cycle upon us, and the AI story probably with further legs, we move our US equity underweight back to neutral, and the technology sector to an overweight.”

This comes as Goldman Sachs reportedly said that they were increasing their S&P 500 expectations to 4,500 at the end of the year from its initial 4,000. David Kostin, Goldman Sachs's chief US equity strategist, gave a statement regarding their expectations.

Kostin: “We are raising Goldman’s S&P 500 year-end price target to 4500 from 4000, representing 5% upside from the current 4299 level.”

This was reportedly far from Citigroup's plan in September 2022, when they planned to scale back lending to asset managers with books estimated to drop from $65 billion to just $20 billion. The information reportedly came from people that were familiar with the matter, but Citi didn't give a comment during that time.

The decision reportedly came after Citi, Bank of America, and JPMorgan were designated as global, systematically important banks. This resulted in Citi being required to hold more capital than its risk-weighed assets.

At the start of the year, Citigroup reportedly dropped its 2023 worldwide recession probability to 30%, down from its original 50%. Previously, their economists thought that the probability of a worldwide recession was at 50-50.

See flow at unusualwhales.com/flow.

Other News:

• Citigroup Plans to Scale Back Lending to Asset Managers with Books Estimated to Drop from $65B to $20B
• Citigroup Drops 2023 Worldwide Recession Probability to 30%, Down from 50%

Resources:

CNBC