here now is Sam Stovall chief investment strategist at CFRA.

Alright Sam, the DOW had its best week of the year last week,

but investors don't seem to be worried about

this week's Fed meeting which will likely include

an annoucement on its balance sheet,

and that's a big deal for the markets.

Absolutely, they, the market basically has been hearing

for quite a long time. From Fed chair Yellen

about the rate tightening program, about how they're

gonna keep that on hold for a little while now because of the inflation,

but the real focus is on the unwinding of the balance sheet.

But I think that there's gonna be no surprise.

We're basically going to be told—given a better clarity

as to when. How long it's gonna happen,

and a reminder that the transparency is gonna be there.

And let's just reminder everyone that this unwinding of the balance sheet

is a multi-year process, so this is not something

that's going to be, you know that's gonna happen overnight.

Let me also ask you about the S&P 500 which crossed 2500 on Friday.

That was a big deal for the markets.

When you were here about a month ago you expected

the S&P 500 to test 23:50 at some point,

that hasn't happen yet but are you sticking by that

forecast for the remainder of the 2017?

Well, I guess, I would say not for the remainder of the 2017.

I don't think it's that great of a likelihood.

What I have found is that whenever the S&P was up

in both August and September, it continued to rise

for the remainder of the year 13 of 16 times.

And in those three times that had actually dipped,

that the average is less than 1.3 percent.

So basically with us hitting all-time highs in the S&P right now

I think we're getting a running start for the rest of the year.

And we to acknowledge the significance

of where we are right now in the stock market

because September as your research points out

is usually the worst year of the month (month of the year) for stocks,

here we are week 3 in September and we're record highs.

Oh sure, and the reason that I published this information

is not to try to get ahead of the market and say

this is going to happen.

But to remind the investors that

this frequently does happen.

And if you are aware of it, you're not going to react

adversely to it. You're not gonna become your portfolio's

worst enemy by selling out at the wrong time.

Actually, just leave things alone, and the market will take care of itself.

Now any time you have stocks hitting record highs,

you have a lot of people come out and say,

"Ok, this is it, correction is coming."

So when strategists tell me,

"Hey, be overweight Europe stocks or emerging markets

versus the US," I mean what's your take on that kind of strategy?

Well, I think is a good one. We've had 7 years in which the S&P

outperform the MSCI EAFE, the developed international index.

The other 2 years are basically kept pace with it.

So "reversion to the mean" is the mantra now of global investors,

but I think about is actually the positive for domestic stocks as well

because we're all seeing a broadening out of this market place.

We're seeing——

What does that mean?

Meaning that more and more assets are participating in this advance.

Usually in a topping out scenario, you have a narrowing

of leadership. And as the result fewer and fewer stocks

are leading the way until they fizzle out

then the market goes down.

But right now we're actually seeing greater interest around the globe.

Alright, just quickly, let's get your year-end target for

the S&P 500, right 2500 now, where do we go by

December 31st?

Well, I think that we are pretty close to fair value right now,

so I would tend to say that we're gonna be remaining

above 2500, but our 12 month target is currently 2560,

so based on earnings expectations and inflationary projections,

it is going to be—I'm a bull with a lowercase "B," let's put it that way.

- Good way of putting. Alright, Sam Stovall, thank you so much as always. - My pleasure!