The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, Dec. 27, edition that 12 months ago, Tom Lee bet that 2023 was going to turn out just fine. A New York Times dispatch to The Globe reports that Mr. Lee spent more than a decade running JPMorgan's equity research before setting up his own shop. Mr. Lee said last year that falling inflation and economic resilience would buck the broadly bearish mood. Mr. Lee was right, the core of his prediction came to fruition in 2023. Inflation has fallen, unemployment remains low and the S&P 500 has risen 24 per cent. Heading into 2024, prognosticators tracked by Bloomberg share Mr. Lee's optimism, including analysts at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Binky Chadha, a stockpicker at Deutsche Bank who bet against the consensus with Mr. Lee last year, is also predicting that the bull rally will continue. At the same time, analysts at Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and others maintain that the absence of a severe downturn in 2023 does not mean it has been avoided altogether, since the full effect of higher interest rates is still working through the economy. Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson says, "There are a lot of things that have to go right to still come out the other side unscathed."