US stocks at record highs, “easy lifting is behind us”

US stocks rose on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 rising 0.2 percent to a record high.

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance, pointed to the “massive amounts of liquidity that the Federal Reserve has injected into the system” as a catalyst for “the stunning recovery that we have just witnessed”.

Indeed, fund managers are the most bullish they have been since the pandemic, according to the latest survey from Bank of America released on Tuesday, which showed a net 12 percent were overweight equities, an increase of seven percentage points since July.

In the meantime, short-term market timers have become extremely bullish, with the average recommended equity exposure among nearly 100 such timers tracked by Mark Hulbert at 65.9 percent, higher than 95 percent of all daily readings since 2000.

However, some analysts have doubts about the sustainability of the rally.

“Our feeling is that a good deal of the easy lifting is behind us,” said Michael Hans, chief investment officer at Clarfeld Citizens Private Wealth.