With just 13 trading sessions left in 2016, one technical analyst forecasts the will rise another 3.6 percent before the year is out, and ring in the new year at 2,350.
After setting the target about a year ago, "it's been wild ride," Piper Jaffray senior technical research analyst Craig Johnson said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "During the sell-off you'd seen back in January, February, we got a lot of pressure from sales, trading and everybody else that we had to cut our numbers."
He admits the odds are "a little bit long" at this point — after all, he notes that the S&P has only risen 6.5 percent or more in four Decembers since 1928.
Still, Johnson is sticking by his target. In a recent note, he wrote that "broad market participation is underpinning equity strength," and that the market "continues to build momentum."
Wednesday's widely expected Federal Reserve announcement of an interest rate hike could help him out, said Boris Schlossberg of BK Asset Management.
"I think [Johnson] has a chance to eke over the line, and the reason why is I think the Fed is going to be a lot more dovish than the market thinks, and that's going to give that extra fuel to the market," Schlossberg said Monday on "Trading Nation."
And a certain amount of "window dressing" could also act as a bullish spur, Schlossberg said, referring to managers' supposed proclivity to buy winning stocks in order to make their picks look better on the whole.
"There's going to be so many people who are just going to want to make sure to mark up inventory before the year-end to make sure they are participating in this rally," Schlossberg said.
Meanwhile, if Johnson comes up short, this wouldn't be the first year. He also started off 2015 with a 2,350 S&P target, which he chopped down to 2,135 that summer. That still proved to be far too optimistic, as the S&P closed the year at 2,044.
