Wall Street's Most Bearish Strategist Predicted S&P 3,750. It's at 6,836.

In July 2024, Peter Berezin earned the title of "most bearish strategist on Wall Street" with a prediction so confident it practically demanded future humiliation. His thesis was airtight: the Fed would "drag its feet" on rate cuts, unemployment would spike, consumers would run out of money, and a beautiful recession would finally arrive to punish all those optimists.

The recession? Still missing. The S&P 500? Instead of crashing 32% to 3,750, it climbed to 6,836 — roughly 82% higher than his target and about 24% higher than where it was when he made the call. The soft landing he dismissed as "consensus narrative"? It landed so softly you could hear a pin drop.

To be fair, Berezin did correctly identify that "what matters for the economy is not the fed funds rate per se." What matters, apparently, is not listening to strategists nicknamed "the most bearish on Wall Street."