Tariffs Can Send The S&P 500 To 6,000

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Key Points

  • If the Trump administration secures trade deals with major economies like China, Japan, and India, markets could see a rally of up to 10%, potentially pushing the S&P 500 (VOO) toward the 6,000 level.

  • Despite tariff optimism, high valuations remain a ceiling, with the S&P’s trailing P/E ratio already above 24, suggesting limited upside from an earnings-multiple standpoint.

  • Fast-money algorithmic trading and persistent short positioning by institutions may continue to inject volatility, even if retail demand stays firm on tariff-related momentum.

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Tariffs Can Send The S&P 500 To 6,000

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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Doug McIntyre: So, Lee, we’ve got a market that’s been beaten up by worries about, tech stocks and tariffs.

[00:00:13] Doug McIntyre: Now the tech stocks have all announced they were a mixed bag. It’s fine. One or two of ’em did. Well, one or two of didn’t. That leaves tariffs on the table, right as the game changer. For stocks. Now, what happens if the Trump administration sort of gets all this cleaned up in 90 days, has deals with all the really big governments?

[00:00:38] Doug McIntyre: What happens to stock market?

[00:00:40] Lee Jackson: we did have a massively high velocity sell off that took the market down into bear market territory, which is down over 20% Now. We’ve recovered a lot of that already. I think the NASDAQ’s down 8%.

[00:00:55] Doug McIntyre: I think that’s about right.

[00:00:57] Lee Jackson: Yeah. So now if, immediate deals were signed or Trump could basically say, or the administration could say, we’ve signed a deal with Japan, China. India, the biggest players we could probably tack on in 20% to this, maybe a 20% rally from here. But the bottom line is the market was way, way overbought when things started to roll over in February.

[00:01:23] Lee Jackson: Way overbought. And it’s still expensive. I mean, the trailing earnings, price to earnings on the S&P is probably still 24, 25. And that’s above historical. Yeah, it’s, it’s,

[00:01:35] Doug McIntyre: I can, I can tell you something. I can see it rallying back to 6,000.

[00:01:41] Lee Jackson: Yes. I think that would be the top. That would be the top end, and that’s what, 10% from here? Something like that.

[00:01:48] Doug McIntyre: Yeah. But, but look, I’m saying if, if, let’s say the tariff news is positive, what you’re saying is, is that there is a cap on it because of the way that people look at a market through the P/E lens, but Right. that would get you to what, 27 or 28 if you were at a 10% rally

[00:02:08] Lee Jackson: Oh, oh times earnings? Yeah. Easily,

[00:02:11] Doug McIntyre: if not higher. That’s, that’s expensive. But I’m gonna predict if, if you’re interested in buying the S&P, all right. I think as a, as a holder of the S&P 500, you, you are gonna rally to around 6,000 if the tariff problem is solved. Right. And it’s solved in a way that’s not negative. I mean, you could solve it in a way that, oh yeah, we’re all gonna have 125% tariffs.

[00:02:37] Doug McIntyre: We shook hands on it. We didn’t love it. But that’s what we’re gonna do. If you’ve got an economically viable solution to the tariff problems, as far as I’m concerned, you’re looking, you’re looking at 6,000.

[00:02:48] Lee Jackson: Yeah. I, don’t think that’s out, out of the question. And most people, it, it is weird when you look at, of course, they all, that, all of the numbers that the major investment banks on Wall Street put out in January.

[00:03:00] Lee Jackson: Of course, they’ve all been adjusted to account for, tariffs, et cetera. They’re as best they can, but yeah, that’s a reasonable synopsis. The thing that’s hard to measure in, in this day and age is how much of this is just fast money computer algo trading that just goes up. Yeah, I know that it, it, it’s all always those, those CTA orders are always logged in at buy and sell levels, on futures contracts or the EMini or whatever.

[00:03:33] Lee Jackson: they’re not trading, individual issues as much. But the question is, and the so-called big money, the, the big investment banks, they’ve been shorting, shorting, shorting. Still. So, I mean, that’s one of the reasons we had such a quick runback is, is, they had to cover their shorts anytime something positive on the tape.

[00:03:56] Lee Jackson: They’re covering their shorts. So is is, and retail buying has been more resilient than it has been in years because they got, when you had two years of just buy the dip, that’s a hard habit to break.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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