Tom Lee says Ethereum will keep charging ahead; playing a likely September Fed rate cut
(This is a wrap-up of the key money moving discussions on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange” exclusive for PRO subscribers. Worldwide Exchange airs at 5 a.m. ET each day.) Investors are looking for opportunities in the crypto space and cyclicals with optimism growing for a quarter-point rate cut from the Federal Reserve in September. Worldwide Exchange Pick: Ethereum Tom Lee of Fundstrat is increasingly bullish on Ethereum, seeing a potential Federal Reserve rate cut as a tail wind and a forecast of $7,500 by year end from Standard Chartered as being conservative. “7,500 might even be on the low end of what’s possible, I’ve seen many targets of $10,000 to $15,000,” Lee said. “Wall Street needs to find a stable and legally compliant blockchain to work on. The majority of stablecoin creation is taking place on Ethereum. … It is the place where Wall Street is essentially financializing the system.” Lee is also the chair for BitMine Immersion Technologies, a company that holds more than $5 billion in Ethereum. Playing the increased rate cut odds Ed Clissold of Ned Davis Research sees upside for cyclicals with the odd of a September Federal Reserve rate cut now at 99% according to the CME FedWatch tool. But Clissold said investors need to be discerning about what cyclicals they put money to work in. “The overall landscape favors cyclical growth sectors like technology,” he said. That’s where the earnings growth is, that’s where the top line sales growth is and a lot of those bigger cap companies are probably better able to navigate this tariff environment. That’s where we would lean towards cyclical growth.” The boost from buybacks U.S. company stock buybacks are on pace for a record year, already topping $900 billion in 2025 . Brian Reynolds of Reynolds Strategy sees the trend continuing. “The buybacks are driven by U.S. public pensions the biggest global investors, they are underfunded and are bringing in fresh new tax money and allocating to credit,” he said. “The last three months have seen a record amount of pensions intending to allocate to credit. That’s going to hit the market over the next three-to-12 months, and we see them doing even more going forward in the fourth quarter.” “So I think the risk of a slowdown in buybacks is very very small,” Reynolds added.
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