13 must-see charts for navigating markets in the second half of the year, according to strategists at 5 top investment banks and asset managers.

It's only been seven months into the year and markets have already

witnessed a multitude of once-in-a-decade events.

Retail traders flocked to no-fee brokerage apps and coordinated

short squeezes against well-known hedge funds, while the US stock

market has continually reached new all-time highs.

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ are up 15% and 11% year-to-date

respectively.

Cryptocurrencies also hit record highs, with bitcoin reaching

around $64,800 only to then lose half its value in a matter of weeks

afterwards. Bitcoin (BTC) currently trades around $31,800.

And value investors that waited years to witness rotation back to

more cyclical stocks got little more than a brief taste of that at the

start of the year before flows reversed back into growth stocks.

On the economic front, there's been major supply-chain and labor

shortages that have seen inflation run at a 13-year high in the US and

a 3-year high in the UK.

Considering so much has happened in the first half of the year,

investors are left wondering what's left to happen in markets over

the second half of this year.

Many major investment banks and asset managers have released

their mid-year outlooks to outline their expectations for the second

half of the year.

The outlooks provide insight into how the firm's are thinking about

major topics, such as will the equity markets go higher or stay flat, or

whether bond yields will continue to march higher and, of course,

when the Federal Reserve might start tapering.

Sometimes the outlooks come to loggerheads as shown by the

differences between JPMorgan Asset Management's and Goldman

Sachs' outlook on equities. However, diving deep into a variety of

outlooks can help investors prepare for what's ahead.

"We think equity markets go higher over the rest of the year, and

over the next 18 months in particular," said JPMorgan Asset

Management's global market strategist Michael Bell, describing the

firm's outlook. " ... Things may get a little bit choppier as well, as we

don't think that the discussion around tighter monetary policy is

going to go away."

"From a valuation perspective, equities during the next six months

are more likely to experience multiple contraction than expansion,"

Goldman Sachs analyst David Kostin said in a July 2 chartbook that

looks back at the first half of the year as well as how to play the

second half.

Insider asked five leading investment banks and asset managers to

share their most compelling graphs from their mid-year outlooks to

help investors navigate the markets the rest of the year.

Here are their top picks:

13 must-see charts