Tom Lee, Fundstrat co-founder and chairman of Bitmine Immersion Technologies, laid out a specific thesis on CNBC Monday: if the Federal Reserve holds rates steady at its Sept. 15 meeting, equities will rally and crypto will outperform everything. His base case is exactly that hold.
"If the Fed doesn't hike, which is our base case, I think actually the markets could rally very strongly," Lee said. He identified Sept. 15 as the pivot point. Earlier he had called for a roughly 10 percent September correction, but has walked that back, reasoning that mounting anxiety around the Fed, AI spending and seasonal weakness has become fuel for a surprise rally instead.
On equities, Lee sees the S&P 500 climbing above 8,000 before any pullback materializes—pushing a drawdown into October rather than September. He then sees a drop to around 7,374, followed by a recovery to his year-end target. He has already called his earlier 8,200 target too low. The reason: 2027 earnings expectations have moved from $350 to $415 per share, and Lee thinks they reach $425.
The S&P 500 sits at $7,686 heading into September, on pace to close August up roughly 3 percent after two consecutive monthly declines. Bitcoin has outperformed all three major equity benchmarks in August—a point Lee used to frame his crypto outlook.
On crypto, Lee did not spread the conviction evenly. "We think the asset with the most FOMO in September and into year-end will be crypto, particularly ETH," he said. Ethereum trades at $2,463, up 2.3 percent in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin is at $78,410, up 1.2 percent. Lee is explicitly flagging Ethereum as the higher-conviction trade for the back half of the year, not Bitcoin alone.
His reasoning ties directly to legislation. Lee pointed to the CLARITY Act—the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a market-structure bill that draws the jurisdictional line between assets regulated by the SEC and those overseen by the CFTC—as a catalyst. "If the CLARITY Act passes, which could happen this year, and if it does, I think Bitcoin and Ethereum have a huge fourth quarter," he said. He described the current move in crypto as the first leg of a larger run, driven by short positioning being caught offside.
"I think this is the beginning," Lee said. "I think it's the first leg up because this was like catching people offside, moving crypto."
On Bitcoin, Lee has not abandoned his $150,000 target. "I think 150 is still possible, not that far off," he said. Bitcoin last traded below $78,000 during Monday's morning session before recovering. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index sits at 69, in Greed territory.
Ethereum spot ETFs were approved in May 2024 and have been trading for over a year, providing institutional access that did not exist in prior cycles. That infrastructure is the mechanism through which the FOMO Lee describes would actually flow—registered funds buying spot ETH through exchange-traded products rather than direct custody.
The setup Lee is describing is binary: hold rates on Sept. 15 and the rally runs; a hike changes everything.
