Wall Street Boosts S&P 500 Targets As Stock Hedging Plummets

Wall Street is feeling extremely confident. JPMorgan raised its year end S&P 500 target to 8,000, while CFRA went even higher with an 8,050 call. Strategists point to booming cloud computing profits and heavy artificial intelligence spending as the main fuel for the ongoing stock rally.

At the same time, investors have stopped buying crash insurance. The one month put to call skew has dropped to a sixteen month low. Traders are skipping downside hedges because the fear of missing out has completely overtaken the fear of a market correction. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 dividend yield just slumped to a record low of 1.04 percent.

This lack of protection creates a fragile environment if unexpected bad news hits. Analysts warn that rising margin debt, sticky inflation, and upcoming US economic reports could catch the market off guard. Bitcoin and the wider crypto sector are watching closely as traditional markets trade near all time highs.