us stocks need to drop by more than a quarter from current levels to adequately reflect the looming slowdown in economic growth and company earnings according to man glg markets are pricing in a “spectacularly dovish glasshalffull view of the world” edward cole managing director and coportfolio manager for equity solutions at man glg said in an interview in london “the way equity assets are priced implies a scenario of immaculate disinflation without any landing at all” man glg is one of the investment divisions of man group plc the sp 500 index should be trading at or below 3000 points in order to reflect cyclical risks with slowing macro momentum expected to feed through into earnings over the coming months he said the us benchmark closed tuesday at 4072 while analysts see companies in the index earning an aggregate 218 a share this year “my expectations for a proper hard landing is for sp 500 earnings per share to be below 200” cole said the sp 500 is up 61 this year with optimists expecting the us to weather a recession and buoyed by a betterthanexpected firstquarter earnings so far the gauge remains in the green despite turmoil in the banking sector sparked by the collapse of silicon valley bank a risk that strategists didn’t see coming “the balance of probabilities is against a soft landing but we are priced for almost no landing” cole said markets are pinning too much hope on a chinese economic rebound and the possibility of us interest rate cuts he said he’s not the only pessimist around with morgan stanley’s michael wilson saying this week that a rally for us stocks in the runup to the earnings season has added to the bearish outlook a bloomberg news analysis of us recessions since 1929 meanwhile suggests it’s a question of when not if the stock market takes a tumble cole oversees research for various equity portfolios at man glg and doesn’t run specific funds according to the firm the eurodenominated man glg european equity alternative fund which focuses on companies that are listed in europe or get a substantial portion of their revenues in the region has lost 06 this year through monday according to the firm’s website after losing 25 in 2022 the company declined to comment on performance while the fund isn’t managed with reference to a benchmark the stoxx europe 600 index has returned 11 this year including dividends having shed 99 in 2022 data due this week on us firstquarter gross domestic product will give more clues into how the economy is holding up after a year of elevated inflation and energy prices the data is expected to show consumer spending got off to a solid start for the year it’ll also likely confirm that inflation remains too high potentially pointing to higherforlonger rates “the shoe that’s probably left to drop this year is how and when deceleration of macroeconomic momentum in developed markets translates into an earnings slowdown” cole said