Barclays raised its year-end projection for the on Thursday, explaining that the bank's new forecasting model better captures strong second-quarter earnings.

Chief equity strategist Maneesh Deshpande revised his December target to 3,000 points, up from his prior projection of 2,900, established in June.

"We switch from an annual to quarterly forecast framework which incorporates more recent information and adjusts calendar year forecasts based on how close we are to year-end," Deshpande told clients in a note.

"This better captures the strong realized earnings growth this year, and along with strong second-quarter earnings, is the primary driver of our revised price target."

The strategist's upgrade to his market projection puts Barclays in line with the median projection according to a survey of Wall Street strategists conducted by CNBC.

It also comes just days after the broad market index reached an intraday record; the S&P 500 reached its new all-time high of 2,873.23 on Tuesday, with the U.S. bull market becoming the longest on record on Wednesday.