Tom Lee says U.S. shares can end 2025 greater and crypto ought to rally into year-end after a pointy deleveraging, laying out his case throughout an interview Friday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Additional time.”
Pressed by co-host Jon Fortt on whether or not the risk-on commerce is again, Lee, who’s the chairman of Bitmine Immersion Applied sciences (BMNR), in addition to the top of analysis at Fundstrat World Advisors and chief funding officer at Fundstrat Capital, famous he stayed bullish by way of the spring droop, reminding viewers Fundstrat’s year-end S&P 500 goal was 6,600 on the April lows.
With the index round 6,800 and roughly 10 weeks left, he mentioned a “typical 12 months” would add about 4%, which “places us over 7,000 into the top of the 12 months,” and argued the acquire might be as a lot as 10%. He tied the upside to Fed cuts that started in September after an extended pause — one thing he mentioned occurred solely in 1998 and 2024 over the previous 50 years — plus persistent investor skepticism that may gasoline late-year advances.
Requested by Fortt how crypto matches alongside tariff and commerce worries, Lee pointed to Oct. 10 as “the largest liquidation occasion in 5 years,” saying the flush was partly sparked by escalating U.S.–China tariff tensions. Regardless of that, bitcoin fell solely 3%–4%, which he framed as an indication of resilience. “If this occurred in gold… and gold was solely down a couple of proportion factors, we’d… contemplate that an actual validation,” he mentioned, calling bitcoin a “fairly good retailer of worth” in that context.
He sees setup enhancing into year-end, declaring that each bitcoin and ether are at file lows in open curiosity — a measure of excellent futures and choices positions — whereas technicals are “flipping constructive.” A cleaner derivatives backdrop, he mentioned, usually precedes upside. Lee additionally highlighted a supportive headline from conventional finance, saying it helps to see JPMorgan “open to the thought of utilizing crypto as collateral.”
Co-host Morgan Brennan then requested whether or not crypto’s tone nonetheless leads equities and the way bitcoin and ether map to U.S. indexes. Lee answered that the alerts look “fairly bullish,” arguing crypto usually flags path for shares and broader liquidity. He linked bitcoin’s habits to the S&P 500 and mentioned ether has implications for small caps through the Russell 2000.
On fundamentals, Lee mentioned Ethereum exercise is climbing on each L1 and L2, pushed by stablecoins, however that utilization takes time to be mirrored in worth —s upporting his view of a “fairly large transfer” into year-end for ETH in addition to BTC.
U.S. shares ended Friday greater, 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 p.m. UTC Saturday, bitcoin modified palms at $111,776 (+0.3% over 24 hours, +19.60% YTD) and ether at $3,952 (−0.4% over 24 hours, +18.15% YTD).
