About James Demare
On December 17, 2024, Bank of America President of Global Markets Jim DeMare appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box" to discuss market trends. DeMare stated that there is "revived enthusiasm" from both investors and CEOs, which he described as a "very good support base for a good year in 2025." He noted that Bank of America has a 6,666 price target for the S&P 500 for the next year, attributing the constructive outlook to earnings growth expectations from the firm's strategists.
DeMare acknowledged "material and serious topics" of concern, including tariffs, taxes, and immigration, which he said create "extreme optimism and extreme pessimism." He described the base case as most Wall Street firms having "adjusted down" their expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts, calling it a "material change." DeMare also identified liquidity gaps as a key risk, citing the 2023 U.K. gilt market disruption as an example of how such gaps can "snowball" and cause widespread disruption.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from James Demare's recent appearances.
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Transcript (19 segments)
I
Interviewer0:10
You'll see right now that we are still looking at the futures, yeah, in the red at this point. Dow futures indicated off by about 165 points. Joining us right now is Jim Demar. He is Bank of America's President of Global Markets. This is his trading floor behind us. First of all, thank you for hosting with us, having the troops in working all through the morning.
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James Demare0:31
Thank you.
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Interviewer0:31
Let's talk about the markets and what you're seeing.
I
Interviewer0:34
You all have 66.66 is your price target for the S&P 500 next year.
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James Demare0:40
Yes. Yes.
I
Interviewer0:41
So 10% up from where it is right now.
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Interviewer0:43
Why 10% next year? What do you see happening?
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James Demare0:47
You've heard from Savita and Brian was mentioning it. Savita is constructive on earnings growth coming in from next year. Michael Hartnet, he thinks we...
I
Interviewer1:11
All of the activity that you see behind us?
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James Demare1:14
It's been super interesting. The bump post election, which is the clearing of some uncertainty out in the marketplace. There's revived enthusiasm, I think both from investors. You've seen it and you've seen it from surveys for CEOs of both large and small companies. I think that's a very good support base for a good year in 2025. You know, there's some obviously material and serious topics that people have concerns about, whether it be tariffs, taxes, immigration all having large impacts on the economy, and I think that's where, you know, you have some extreme optimism and extreme pessimism. I think for the first half of the year there's a little bit...
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Interviewer2:10
Impacting things if we're no longer in a steep rate cutting cycle but maybe we're not raising rates?
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James Demare2:15
I think that's the base case now. I mean, I think most Wall Street firms have adjusted down, which is a material change from where we were.
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Interviewer2:25
Adjusted down the number of cuts?
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James Demare2:27
I'm sorry, the number of cuts. Depending which Wall Street analyst, even this time last year expect the cuts anywhere from 150 to 200 basis points over a 12 to 18-month period. I think the returns about a hard landing, I was thinking about it this morning, the discussion hard landing, soft landing, no landing doesn't seem to be as prevalent as it was just about 12 months ago. I think the Fed policy, obviously it's clearly important. Monetary policy has a big...
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Interviewer3:10
How that policy will remain the same or what tweaks we will see.
What's your biggest concern? Obviously you're optimistic. What's the biggest thing you worry about?
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James Demare3:18
I worry about a lot of things. Every day I think my real job is to think about what risks are out there. One of the more difficult things to anticipate but something we always look at in the market, you know, liquidity gaps can be very disruptive and they can also cause a great deal of disruption outside of where that liquidity gap occurred. We've seen it, you know, a year ago in the U.K. gilt market, pensions. And we've seen, you know, it snowball. We always seem to find...
