BMO Capital Markets Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski, who just a few days ago was clinging to a year-end S&P/TSX Composite Index target that implied almost 32 per cent potential upside, has cut that outlook.

“Given the persistent inflationary environment and hawkish central banks, we are reducing our 2022 year-end S&P/TSX price target to a more realistic 21,000 from 24,000 amid a reset of our underlying model assumptions,” he wrote in a report to clients on Thursday.

The revision to his outlook was made just a couple of days after Belski said he was “sticking with that (24,000 target) for now” and took a swipe at his bearish peers, who he accused of “trying to pump the market lower.”

“Our overall theme for Canada remains resolute that Canada is a very cheap backdoor way to own the United States,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

In addition to cutting his outlook for the TSX, Belski also reduced his year-end target for the S&P 500 to 4,300 from 4,800, while citing an “inflation environment which we underestimated with our previous forecast.”