Citigroup raised its year-end S & P 500 target nearly 9%, to 6,300 from 5,800, implying that the market can rise another 5% from current levels. Strategist Scott Chronert noted that while "high policy volatility is likely to continue," market fundamentals appear to be solid. "No doubt, policy volatility is likely to persist as are numerous other risks. This keeps us reticent to chase rallies but more inclined to buy pullbacks," he said. "What the first half has told us is that fundamental volatility may be more manageable as tariffs, taxes, budget/deficit, rates, currency, geopolitics, etc. will all continue to remain in the financial news headlines." With this change, Chronert became the fifth sell-side strategist tracked by CNBC Pro to increase his 2025 S & P 500 forecast. Here are the other four target hikes over the past week. Lori Calvasina of RBC : to 5,730 from 5,550 Binky Chadha of Deutsche Bank : to 6,550 from 6,150 Venu Krishna of Barclays : to 6,050 from 5,900 Dubravko Lakos-Bujas of JPMorgan : to 6,000 from 5,200 Those changes come as the Street grows less worried about rising trade tensions between the U.S. and other countries. On Monday, U.S. and Chinese officials were in London to discuss tariffs. "There will likely be posturing for threats of higher tariff rates on a country by country basis, as well as additional sectoral tariffs put in place, but we do not think this will produce the same shock/surprise that set off the April drawdown," Citi's Chronert wrote. "We saw evidence of this dynamic [last week] with no market reaction to steel and aluminum sectoral tariff rates being raised from 25% to 50%." "Trading moves aside, we expect investors will tend to look through shorter term policy noise in aggregate," he said.
