This Strategist Thinks the S&P 500 Could Smash Through 8,000 ‘In the Near Term’

The S&P 500 is sitting at around $734 on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) proxy, up 7.4% year to date and 20% over the past year, and a strategist appearing on The Markets segment “S&P to 8,000 This Year?” thinks the index has a clean path to a new comma.

The pitch is straightforward. Buy what is already working, ignore the wobble, and trust earnings to carry the freight. The host told viewers the “S&P 500 has a real chance to break above 8,000 in the near term because we said there’s a whole lot of technicals that are a tailwind right now.” That target implies roughly another leg higher from current SPX levels in the mid-6,500s. You are also being told to buy the dip, which is convenient because there happens to be a dip on offer this week.

The momentum trade and why it is crowded for a reason

Lean into what is winning. Per the strategist, “My favorite trade right now is to continue to lean into what’s working. High momentum is crowded right now. It’s crowded for a reason. I think that semis, I think that semi equipment, I think that pockets of Korea and Taiwan continue to work.”

The price action backs the call.

The Nasdaq-100 via Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) is up 16% year to date and 32% over twelve months, and it has dragged semis and AI capex names along. Korea fell 10% in a single day earlier this week, and the strategist shrugged. When everyone is in a trade, single-day vol is the cost of admission. Notable, too, is that breadth has shown up. The Russell 2000 via iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEARCA:IWM) is up 21% year to date and 41% over the past year, and it has outrun large caps. A rally that includes small caps is harder to dismiss as a five-stock parlor trick.

Earnings are doing the work the multiple cannot

The strategist’s actual fundamental case is one sentence. “Most important, earnings have been fantastic and they should continue to be.” The BEA’s corporate profits data agrees.

Total US corporate profits hit $4.4 trillion in 2026 Q1, growing 12.8% year over year, the strongest YoY pace in the recent dataset. Domestic profits ran $3.86 trillion, with non-financial sectors generating $2.97 trillion and the information sector alone clocking $352.5 billion.

June’s reporting calendar offered confirmation in real time that 588 companies reported in the month. That is the kind of broad print pattern that lines up with JPMorgan’s outlook calling for 13% S&P 500 EPS growth in 2026, with the Mag 7 expected to grow earnings 20% and the S&P 493 contributing 64% of overall profit growth. The bull case is essentially that 11% to 13% earnings growth eventually drags valuation along with it.

The June 29-30 pension rebalance and what to watch

The host flagged an estimated $30 billion in US stocks set for sale due to pension rebalancing on June 29th and 30th, because equities have so badly outrun fixed income that asset-allocation models are forced to trim. Mechanical selling is just that, mechanical.

Therefore, the fund does not care about your technicals. SPY is already down 1.9% on the week and 2.2% on the month, and QQQ has given back 3.5% in a week. To the strategist, that is the setup. The flow is finite, the calendar is known, and the earnings tape behind it is the strongest YoY profit growth in years.

So the trade he is describing is to take the rebalance hit on Monday and Tuesday. You can then use it as the entry into semis, semi-cap equipment, and the Korea and Taiwan exposure that has already shown it can lose 10% in a day and stay in an uptrend. Whether 8,000 prints in the near term depends on whether Q2 earnings season, which kicks off in mid-July, confirms the 12.8% profit run-rate the BEA is already showing. If it does, the math gets easier. If it does not, momentum is a crowded trade for a different reason.