JPMorgan's "Gandalf" Called for S&P 4,200. It Closed at 5,882. He Got Fired.

Once celebrated as "Gandalf" for his uncanny market predictions, Marko Kolanovic made the biggest bet of his 19-year JPMorgan career in late 2022: recession was coming, and the market would crater. He urged clients to dump equities just as ChatGPT was about to ignite the greatest AI rally in history. Going into 2024, he stuck to his guns with the lowest S&P 500 target of any major bank—4,200, implying a 25% crash. When the market briefly dipped in April, he triumphantly declared the selloff had "further to go." It had already ended. By July, the S&P was up 11% from that call. By year-end, it closed at 5,882—40% higher than his prediction. The wizard's staff was confiscated in July 2024. Bloomberg's old nickname aged like a fine irony: "It's Marko Kolanovic's market, we just trade in it."