A trader at the New York Stock Exchange [AFP Yonhap News Archive Photo]

Wall Street forecasts suggest that the New York stock market will continue its upward trend, despite ongoing geopolitical instability in the Middle East and prolonged disruptions in energy supply and demand.

On the 13th (local time), Bloomberg News reported that the market strategy team led by Mike Wilson, Chief U.S. Equity Strategist and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Morgan Stanley, projected in an outlook report that the U.S. Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index will reach 8,300 in 12 months.

This represents a 12% increase from the previous day's closing price.

Wilson also raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 index from the previous 7,800 to 8,000.

The strong earnings and earnings outlooks from U.S. companies in the first quarter, which exceeded expectations, are providing the backdrop for maintaining a bullish view.

According to Bloomberg, the first-quarter net profit of S&P 500 companies that have announced earnings so far increased by 27% year-on-year. This is more than double the approximately 12% increase initially anticipated by Wall Street analysts.

Wilson stated, "Despite concerns over geopolitical risks, private credit, and disruptive innovations from artificial intelligence (AI), the resilience shown in corporate earnings supports our (bullish) perspective."

Although Wilson noted that most of the profit growth in the first quarter was concentrated in a few mega-cap tech companies, he expects profit growth and market leadership to broaden to other sectors throughout the year.

He also assessed that the stock valuations of hyperscalers, which have been leading the bull market, are not at an excessive level.

Previously, Ed Yardeni, Chief Investment Strategist at Yardeni Research, also raised his year-end S&P 500 index forecast from 7,700 to 8,250 in a recent investor note, predicting a continued bull market.

On the other hand, there are also significant assessments that the recent surge in the New York stock market, driven by the AI boom, is reminiscent of the period just before the collapse of the 2000 'dot-com bubble'.

Michael Burry, the U.S. short-seller famous for being a real-life character in the movie 'The Big Short', recently warned of a potential sharp downturn in a post on the online newsletter platform Substack, stating that the Nasdaq index's valuation has soared to an unsustainable level.