Bold Market Calls Abound as Minerd Says S&P 500 Could Drop 40%

(Bloomberg) -- The dispersion of Wall Street views on the outlook for stocks has been widening for a while, and Scott Minerd may have taken things up another notch.

The chief investment officer at Guggenheim suggested over the weekend that the S&P 500 might fall to 1,500 as the coronavirus spreads and its impact is felt in the world’s largest economy. That’s a whopping 40% slide from current levels, and a call that looks eye-catching even for a noted bear.

“We need to see the other shoe drop,” Minerd wrote in a report Sunday. “When the markets start to see some of the data on unemployment rising and economic growth and corporate earnings contracting, there will be another level of panic.”

Weighing the global spread of the coronavirus against the extreme stimulus measures designed to offset its impact is increasingly driving a wedge between various market participants. JPMorgan Chase & Co. says the worst is probably already past, and that there is potential for the S&P 500 to rally back up to 2,850. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has said the gauge could fall to 2,000 before recovering.

Minerd is expecting an economic contraction of well over 10% this year. He also forecasts S&P 500 earnings per share of around $100, which with a traditional market multiple would put the gauge around 1,500, he said. It closed at 2,488.65 on Friday.

While he likes the Federal Reserve’s response to the pandemic, crediting emergency policy moves with helping restore liquidity, Minerd is less impressed by Congress and the White House. The fiscal programs put in place may be “nowhere near sufficient,” he said, and in some cases perhaps even misguided.

Still, Guggenheim is seeking opportunities amid the turmoil.

“We are opportunistically trying to move from some of our more conservative investments to securities that, in our view, look attractive,” he wrote. “We are looking at investment-grade corporate bonds and municipal bonds, and select securities in structured credit and high-yield, where prices have dropped and spreads have widened significantly, look interesting.”

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