The Big Take

Wall Street’s Top Stars Got Blindsided by 2022 Market Collapse

The year began with faith that inflation would fade and the Fed would hold rates low. Then came a brutal reckoning.

A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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Marko Kolanovic and John Stoltzfus, two of the loudest stock bulls on all of Wall Street, were convinced of one thing at the outset of 2022: The Federal Reserve would go slowBloomberg Terminal, very slow, with its plan to lift interest rates. Nevermind that inflation had already soared to its highest level in four decades. The rate increases, they said, would come in increments so small that financial markets would barely feel them.

And so Kolanovic, JPMorgan Chase's co-head of global research, predictedBloomberg Terminal a broad rally. He and his team pinned the S&P 500 Index at 5,050 by the end of 2022. Stoltzfus, the chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer, was even bolder: 5,330.