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Marko Kolanovic is stepping down as JPMorgan’s chief global market strategist, ending a 19-year tenure that culminated in a series of ill-timed predictions for the U.S. stock market.
Kolanovic, who is also co-head of global research at the bank, is one of the few bearish strategists remaining on Wall Street, and recently predicted that the S&P 500 would fall nearly 25% from current levels by the end of the year.
Once dubbed “the man who moves the markets” by CNBC and “Gandalf” by Bloomberg, Mr. Kolanovic’s popularity has waned in recent years after a series of contrarian — and ultimately ill-timed — predictions about the direction of the S&P 500.
Two years ago, he advised clients to be overweight in U.S. stocks during the market sell-off, but switched to recommending an underweight in early 2023. The bank has maintained that position ever since, even as blue-chip indexes have surged more than 40%.
Mr. Kolanovic, who earned a doctorate in high-energy theoretical physics from New York University and worked at Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch before joining JPMorgan, plans to “explore other opportunities,” a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Kolanovic did not respond to a request for comment.
A bank spokesman said Hussain Malik, who had previously co-headed the division with Kolanovic, would now become sole head of global research.
JPMorgan’s chief global equity strategist Dubravko Lakos-Bujas will head market strategy in a new role covering equity, cross-asset and macroeconomic research, while the bank confirmed that Steve Dulake and Nick Rosato will co-lead “Fundamental Research,” a newly branded team that will bring credit and equity research under one leadership structure.
A JPMorgan biography obtained by the Financial Times praised Kolanovic’s “timely and accurate short-term forecasts of stock market returns” and said he was inducted into the Institutional Investor Hall of Fame in 2020 for “earning the number one spot for 10 consecutive years.”
He and other JPMorgan strategists reiterated their bearish outlook in a client note last week, highlighting the “horrible” weakness in the U.S. stock market.
“Since last year, we have seen the results of a soft landing. [for the US economy] “This will be difficult to achieve; rather, interest rates will likely remain elevated and a no-landing is likely until tighter monetary policy and a more accommodative macroeconomic environment support economic growth,” the team wrote in late June.
Although the team favored high-quality large-cap stocks, [the Magnificent Six] “In terms of price momentum and earnings revisions,” he described the handful of stocks that have driven much of the S&P 500’s recent gains.
The index hit a new all-time high this week.But the S&P 500 equal-weighted index is little changed over the past two and a half years, and the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks is up just 0.3% so far this year.
