Wall Street Is Scared to Be Bearish. That Could Mean Trouble Ahead. [Video]

The glass is almost always half full on Wall Street. Strategists at the world’s biggest banks are regularly optimistic about what the future holds for the stock market.

This hasn’t changed for 2025. But something is different this year: top equity strategists are even more cheery than usual.

According to a Business Insider analysis of data compiled by Bloomberg, 2025 year-end price targets are substantially higher on average than at the start of the last five years.

In each December leading into 2020-2024, the average projected upside for the following year has been 4.5%. This year, Wall Street sees 11.5% returns.

Even when taking bears out of the equation, upside expectations among those who are bullish are substantially higher in 2025. From 2020-2024, bulls saw an average of 6.3% gains. Bulls project an average of 12.4% returns this year.

Meanwhile, bears have also mostly gone extinct. Marko Kolanovic, the former JPMorgan strategist, left the …