Making his case during an interview Friday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime,” Tom Lee says U.S. stocks could hit higher highs by 2025 and cryptocurrencies should rally toward the end of the year after a sharp decline.
Pressed by co-host John Forte on whether risk-based trading is back, Lee, who is president of Bitcoin Immersion Technologies (BMNR), as well as head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and chief investment officer of Fundstrat Capital, said he remained bullish during the spring downturn, reminding viewers that Fundstrat’s year-end S&P 500 The target was 6,600 at the April low.
With the index around 6,800 and about 10 weeks left, he said a “normal year” would see a rise of about 4%, which “puts us over 7,000 at the end of the year,” and argued that gains could be as much as 10%. He reversed Fed rate cuts that began in September after a long hiatus – he said this happened only in 1998 and 2024 in the last 50 years – as well as persistent investor skepticism that could lead to progress later in the year.
Asked by Forte how crypto fits in with tariffs and trade concerns, Lee described October 10 as “the largest liquidation event in five years,” adding that the flush was partly triggered by escalating US-China tariff tensions. Despite this, Bitcoin declined only 3%-4%, which he cited as a sign of resilience. “If that happened to gold… and gold was only down a few percentage points, we would… consider that real validation,” he said, calling Bitcoin a “very good store of value” in that context.
He sees an improvement in the year-end setup, pointing out that both Bitcoin and Ether are at record lows in open interest – a measure of outstanding futures and options positions – while technicals are “flipping positive.” A clean derivatives background often comes before a rally, he said. Lee also highlighted a supportive headline from traditional finance, saying it helps to see JPMorgan “open to the idea of using crypto as collateral.”
Co-host Morgan Brennan then asked if crypto’s tone still leads equities and how Bitcoin and Ether map onto the US index. Lee replied that the signals look “very bullish,” arguing that crypto often signals the direction for stocks and broader liquidity. He linked Bitcoin’s behavior to the S&P 500 and said Ether has an impact on small caps through the Russell 2000.
On fundamentals, Lee said Ethereum activity is climbing on both L1 and L2, driven by stablecoins, but that usage is taking time to be reflected in prices, supporting his idea of a “fairly big move” for ETH as well as BTC later in the year.
US stocks closed higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 at 6,791.69 (+0.79% on the day, +15.73% YTD), the Nasdaq Composite at 23,204.87 (+1.15%, +20.35% YTD) and the Dow at 47,207.12 (+1.01%, +11.36%). YTD). As of 12:50 pm UTC Saturday, Bitcoin changed hands at $111,776 (+0.3% in 24 hours, +19.60% YTD) and Ether at $3,952 (+0.4% in 24 hours, +18.15% YTD).