Danielle Liverance
5 min read
Quick Read
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SPY has gained 26% over the past year, and Evercore’s Emanuel sees it climbing further with a bull-case S&P 500 target of 9,000.
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$8 trillion sitting in money market funds represents undeployed capital that Emanuel says will fuel the final FOMO-driven melt-up phase.
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Four consecutive quarters of double-digit earnings growth and 13% EPS consensus for 2026 keep valuations from looking stretched despite the rally.
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Julian Emanuel, chief equity derivatives and quantitative strategist at Evercore, just laid out one of the most aggressive Wall Street scenarios yet for the S&P 500. In a CNBC segment on June 16, 2026, Emanuel walked through a framework that puts his base case at 7,750 and his bull case at 9,000. The 9,000 number is the optimistic scenario, not the central call, but the logic behind it deserves attention because every traditional bull-market killer Emanuel can identify is either fading or still ahead in a friendly form.
The Bull-Market Endgame Checklist
Emanuel’s framework starts with the conditions that historically kill structural bull markets. “When you think about how bull markets, particularly tech-driven structural bull markets unfold, there are several elements that end bull markets. And to the negative it’s a recession. It’s a FED that’s going to be hiking rates. That is quickly going off the table.”
The Fed Funds target upper bound currently sits at 3.75%, down from a peak of 4.50% in September 2025, and has held steady at that level for roughly six months. The 10-year/2-year Treasury spread stands at a positive 0.40%, with no inversion across the full 12-month window. Recession warning lights are not currently flashing. Prediction markets currently assign only 13% odds of a recession by the end of 2026. That’s down from 36% in late March.
Two Headwinds Already Behind Us
Emanuel argues the market has already absorbed two punches that often trip up bull runs: rising oil and rising long-end yields. WTI crude now carries what he calls a “seven handle”, with prices sitting at $95.00 per barrel after retreating from a May peak near $112.09 (since Emanuel appeared on CNBC, they’ve fallen even lower to around $80 per barrel). The 10-year Treasury yield, meanwhile, has parked near the top of its 12-month range at 4.42%. Stocks digested both moves on the way up.
That digestion shows in the tape. The S&P 500 ETF is up 10.69% year to date and 26.44% over the past year, closing at $754.83 on June 15. The VIX is at 16.20, sitting in the 27.9 percentile of its 12-month range. Fear has drained out.
