Tom Lee’s Year-End Playbook for Crypto and U.S. Stocks — Signals He’s Watching

Tom Lee says U.S. stocks can finish 2025 higher and crypto should rally into year-end after a sharp deleveraging, laying out his case during an interview Friday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.”

Pressed by co-host Jon Fortt on whether the risk-on trade is back, Lee, who is the chairman of Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), as well as the head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and chief investment officer at Fundstrat Capital, noted he stayed bullish through the spring slump, reminding viewers Fundstrat’s year-end S&P 500 target was 6,600 at the April lows.

With the index around 6,800 and roughly 10 weeks left, he said a “typical year” would add about 4%, which “puts us over 7,000 into the end of the year,” and argued the gain could be as much as 10%. He tied the upside to Fed cuts that began in September after a long pause — something he said happened only in 1998 and 2024 over the past 50 years — plus persistent investor skepticism that can fuel late-year advances.

Asked by Fortt how crypto fits alongside tariff and trade worries, Lee pointed to Oct. 10 as “the biggest liquidation event in five years,” saying the flush was partly sparked by escalating U.S.–China tariff tensions. Despite that, bitcoin fell only 3%–4%, which he framed as a sign of resilience. “If this happened in gold… and gold was only down a few percentage points, we’d… consider that a real validation,” he said, calling bitcoin a “pretty good store of value” in that context.

He sees setup improving into year-end, pointing out that both bitcoin and ether are at record lows in open interest — a measure of outstanding futures and options positions — while technicals are “flipping positive.” A cleaner derivatives backdrop, he said, often precedes upside. Lee also highlighted a supportive headline from traditional finance, saying it helps to see JPMorgan “open to the idea of using crypto as collateral.”

Co-host Morgan Brennan then asked whether crypto’s tone still leads equities and how bitcoin and ether map to U.S. indexes. Lee answered that the signals look “pretty bullish,” arguing that crypto often flags direction for stocks and broader liquidity. He linked bitcoin’s behavior to the S&P 500 and said ether has implications for small caps via the Russell 2000.

On fundamentals, Lee said Ethereum activity is climbing on both L1 and L2, driven by stablecoins, but that usage takes time to be reflected in prices, supporting his view of a “pretty big move” into year-end for ETH as well as BTC.

U.S. stocks ended Friday higher, with the S&P 500 at 6,791.69 (+0.79% on the day, +15.73% YTD), the Nasdaq Composite at 23,204.87 (+1.15%, +20.35% YTD) and the Dow at 47,207.12 (+1.01%, +11.36% YTD). As of 12:50 p.m. UTC Saturday, bitcoin changed hands at $111,776 (+0.3% over 24 hours, +19.60% YTD) and ether at $3,952 (−0.4% over 24 hours, +18.15% YTD).