Despite a whole host of potential market-endangering events, stocks keep climbing higher much to Wall Street's confusion.
Even with a terrible May jobs number, tumbling bond yields, low volatility and a Brexit as a summer possibility, stocks are still going higher. The actually hit 2,113 in intraday trading Monday, a level it hasn't seen since November of last year, after Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke urging investors not to overreact to seemingly soft economic data.
According to Piper Jaffray technical analyst Craig Johnson, the markets are in actuality reacting just as they should be. "Markets right now I think are moving logically to the environment we're in and I think we're going to continue to see the market work its way higher," he said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."
Not only does Johnson expect to see the S&P 500 rise above its May 2015 peak, he said that the market can work its way as high as 2,350 by the end of the year — a more than 11 percent gain in the next six months.
On the other hand, Susquehanna Financial's head of derivative strategy, Stacey Gilbert, believes the market's move is more "range bound" and maintains a bearish position. She cites the lack of risk being priced into equities as part of her prediction, though stresses that investors could look outside of the U.S. for growth.
"If you look on the broader international level, developed markets have the biggest risk there particularly on the ETF side where we can look at it on U.S. dollar terms. Brexit is by far the biggest risk that is out there," she said. "But if you look at emerging markets, we're seeing money move into there and this is an area where I think investors are looking for growth not specific to the U.S."
Gilbert also stresses that individual sectors, such as real estate, could be good investments for growth as well.
