Portfolio manager Jack Caffrey says the market is fundamentally earnings-driven, with Bitcoin serving as a key risk-sentiment gauge for equity investors.
JPMorgan Asset Management is making a bold call on US equities: buy the dips, because they won’t last long. Jack Caffrey, a portfolio manager at the firm, laid out a case on June 9 that American stocks have more room to run, even as some corners of the market flash overvaluation warnings.
The thesis rests on one number that’s hard to argue with. Caffrey is forecasting corporate profit growth of 22% or more for 2026, a significant acceleration from the mid-teens growth expected for 2025. In his framing, this isn’t a momentum trade or a vibes-based rally. It’s an “earnings-driven” market, which is Wall Street’s polite way of saying the gains actually have receipts.
The case for staying long
His argument is straightforward. As long as earnings revisions remain positive, meaning analysts keep nudging their profit estimates higher rather than lower, any dip in stock prices becomes a buying opportunity rather than the start of something uglier.
JPMorgan’s year-end target for the S&P 500 sits at 7,500 for 2026. That target implicitly bakes in the assumption that corporate America will deliver on the earnings front. For context, mid-teens growth is also the expectation for 2027, suggesting JPMorgan sees 2026 as the peak year in this earnings cycle before growth normalizes.
Caffrey, who serves as a managing director at JPMorgan and has co-managed the JPMorgan American Investment Trust, has been a regular presence on financial media outlets including CNBC and Bloomberg.
Bitcoin as the market’s mood ring
Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in Caffrey’s analysis is his treatment of Bitcoin as a risk-sentiment indicator for US equities. He’s not pitching Bitcoin as an investment. He’s using it as a diagnostic tool.
In previous commentary from December 2025, Caffrey highlighted a notable divergence between Bitcoin and gold. When Bitcoin rallies and gold doesn’t, it generally signals that risk appetite is healthy. When the reverse happens, it suggests investors are getting nervous and rotating into safer havens.
Caffrey did not mention any other digital assets in his recent outlook. Bitcoin remains the only cryptocurrency that commands this kind of attention from traditional equity strategists.
What this means for investors
The practical takeaway from Caffrey’s outlook is that the risk-reward calculus for US equities remains tilted to the upside, at least through year-end 2026. A 22% earnings growth forecast, if realized, would represent one of the stronger profit expansion years in recent memory.
The risk, of course, is that the earnings growth doesn’t materialize. Caffrey himself acknowledged this implicitly by conditioning his optimism on continued positive revisions. Remove that condition and the math changes dramatically.
