Marko Kolanovic, Chief Global Markets Strategist at JPMorgan, will leave his position after 19 years with the company. This decision follows a series of incorrect forecasts about the U.S. stock market.

Kolanovic, who was also co-head of the bank's global research department, was one of the few pessimistic strategists on Wall Street. He had recently predicted that the S&P 500 would fall by almost 25 percent from current levels by the end of the year.

Once referred to by CNBC as 'the man who moves markets' and by Bloomberg as 'Gandalf,' Kolanovic's star has waned in recent years due to a series of contrary and ultimately failed forecasts for the S&P 500.

Here is the translated heading in English:

"Two years ago, he advised clients to overweight U.S. stocks during a deep market sell-off, before switching to an underweight position at the beginning of 2023. The bank has maintained this position since then, even though the blue-chip index has risen by more than 40 percent since.

Kolanovic, who earned a PhD in theoretical high-energy physics from New York University and worked at Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch before joining JPMorgan, will now "explore other opportunities," according to a person familiar with the situation. Kolanovic declined to comment.

Hussein Malik becomes the sole head of the global research department after previously co-leading the department with Kolanovic, a bank spokesperson announced.

Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, Chief Global Equity Strategist at JPMorgan, will lead market strategy in a new role that includes equity, cross-asset, and macroeconomic research. Steve Dulake and Nick Rosato will co-lead the "Fundamental Research" team, a newly branded team that combines credit and equity research under one leadership.

A biography forwarded by JPMorgan to the Financial Times praised Kolanovic for his "timely and accurate short-term forecasts of stock market returns" and highlighted that he was inducted into the Institutional Investor Hall of Fame in 2020 after ranking first for ten consecutive years.

Kolanovic and other JPMorgan strategists reiterated their pessimistic outlook in a note to clients last week, emphasizing the lack of "breadth" in the US stock market. "Since last year, we have argued that a soft-landing scenario [for the US economy] would be difficult to achieve. Instead, a no-landing scenario would be more likely with persistently high interest rates until growth succumbs to restrictive monetary policy and a weakening macroeconomic backdrop," the team wrote at the end of June.

Despite their preference for high-quality large-cap stocks, the team admitted that they had 'underestimated' the resilience of the 'Magnificent Six' in terms of price dynamics and earnings revisions, referring to the few stocks that have accounted for the majority of the recent gains in the S&P 500.

The index rose to a new all-time high this week. In contrast, the equal-weighted S&P 500 index has remained largely unchanged over the past two and a half years, while the small-cap Russell 2000 increased by only 0.3 percent in 2024.