J.P. Morgan strategists raised the S&P 500 index target for the second time in two months, citing strong corporate profits and the fact that huge investments in artificial intelligence are beginning to pay off. The team, led by Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, currently anticipates that the US stock market benchmark index will rise to 8,000 points, up about 3% from last Friday's closing level. They had already raised their target from 7,600 points to 7,800 points in June. The latest forecast is slightly higher than the average of 20 strategists. The J.P. Morgan team said that the second-quarter earnings season has shown signs that the capital expenses of so-called AI hyperscale cloud service providers are being monetized through customer demand. They pointed out that Google, Amazon, and Microsoft's cloud business is growing faster and the backlog of orders is increasing, which should help ease market concerns about the return on capital invested by these companies.

J.P. Morgan strategists raised the S&P 500 index target for the second time in two months, citing strong corporate profits and the fact that huge investments in artificial intelligence are beginning to pay off. The team, led by Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, currently anticipates that the US stock market benchmark index will rise to 8,000 points, up about 3% from last Friday's closing level. They had already raised their target from 7,600 points to 7,800 points in June. The latest forecast is slightly higher than the average of 20 strategists. The J.P. Morgan team said that the second-quarter earnings season has shown signs that the capital expenses of so-called AI hyperscale cloud service providers are being monetized through customer demand. They pointed out that Google, Amazon, and Microsoft's cloud business is growing faster and the backlog of orders is increasing, which should help ease market concerns about the return on capital invested by these companies.