Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist of Wells Capital Management, is a contrarian when it comes to the end of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE) program. Instead of it being the disaster for stocks that many predict, he says it could set the stage for a market liftoff to the upside.

Conventional pundit wisdom is that when the Fed takes the QE training wheels away, the stock market will fall without the monetary support it has come to depend on.

Au contraire, Paulsen said in a client note that looked optimistically to 2014, according to MarketWatch.

Editor’s Note: Forbes Columnist: ‘Who the Hell Cleared This?’ (See Shocking Video)

"Alternatively, should the economy and the stock market survive and prosper despite the Fed taking away the punch bowl and despite higher mortgage yields, 'confidence' (possibly held back by a Fed which perpetuated a 'myth' that the economic recovery was artificial and only being kept alive by a constant liquidity drip) may finally improve enough to produce economic activity based on animal spirits and promote yet another upward valuation reassessment in the stock market," he wrote.

Paulsen cited a variety of reasons for his positive outlook.

First, confidence data has been maintained despite higher mortgage yields and talk of the Fed tapering its $85 billion monthly bond-buying program.

Further, the Institute of Supply Management's manufacturing survey rose to its highest level in two years in July, the Standard & Poor's 500 is near its record 1,700 close and the U.S. dollar is strong.

"Broadly based cyclical stock-price leadership and sanguine credit-market spreads suggest rising expectations of Fed tapering and higher bond yields have yet to break ongoing momentum in the economy," Paulsen noted.

Paulsen predicts the S&P 500 will be range bound between 1,575 and 1,725 for the rest of 2013, before heading up again in 2014, according to MarketWatch.

Others agree that stocks will not move much in either direction.

"The markets are sort of casting around, looking for direction," Chris Beauchamp, an analyst at IG in London, told CNNMoney.

Beauchamp said investors are cautious ahead of the Fed's expected cutback of bond buying activity.

"It's the thing that continues to worry people," Beauchamp stated. "I still think that they're not going to move too soon."

Editor’s Note: Forbes Columnist: ‘Who the Hell Cleared This?’ (See Shocking Video)