Top Wall Street strategist gets hate mail and fires back after discovering his critic is actually 'bad at their job'
Parker, the chief US equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, has a year-end price target on the S&P 500 of 2,275 and at the start of the year was among the most optimistic strategists on Wall Street.
And as stocks have continued to power higher amid a recent run of disappointing economic data, more and more people on Wall Street have begun to doubt the potency of the current stock rally.
One of these non-believers reached out to Parker recently, telling him that his bullish outlook was "almost by definition a market top."
And Parker was not having it.
"We were worried that there may be some truth to this person's claim; after all, it is exactly our nightmare scenario, and Wall Street's history isn't exactly devoid of strategists at bulge bracket firms providing such examples," Parker wrote in a note to clients.
"However, we analyzed this particular advisor's background and learned that they have been at this for 27 years and have practically no assets under management. A vocal dissenter never felt better. It remains to be seen if we have a bad market call, but it is clear that this particular advisor is bad at their job."
Ouch.
This is more or less the equivalent of a high-profile media person going after a troll on Twitter who has no profile picture and 8 followers. This is digging deep.
And it also shows the level of frustration bulls are currently feeling.
Currently, investors are still fairly cautious on stocks as the Federal Reserve eyes interest rate hikes for the first time in almost 9 years and that aforementioned disappointing data casts some doubt over the economy.
It is, in short, a hated stock rally.
And Adam Parker is done dealing with the haters.