U.S. stocks could start their year-end rally as early as this week, a top Wall Street analyst suggested Friday, as markets break out of their post-election malaise and power toward what could be a record year for the S&P 500.
Goldman Sachs analyst Scott Rubner, the bank’s global markets managing director who earlier this month pegged a year-end target for the S&P 500 of 6,300 points, says stocks are set for a solid holiday season bounce following a week in which the benchmark has gained around 1.3% to take its 2024 advance past 24%.
“US equities have been in a consolidation phase all week, which is typical going back to 1928,” Rubner said in a client note published Friday. “Next week typically starts the year-end rally, including some of the best trading days of the year into Thanksgiving.”
Rubner said the year-end rally in an election year “typically extends into early January” before “typically fading right before Inauguration Day” on Jan. 20.
Goldman Sachs data, which track the market’s performance from Election Day to the end of the year going back to 1928, notes a 3.4% average gain for the S&P 500.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on April 9, 2024. Wall Street could see an end-of-year rally that delivers a record year for the S&P 500.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
This year the benchmark has printed more than 50 all-time highs and added nearly $6 trillion in overall market value and is on pace to deliver the best year-on-year advance in history.
Stocks bull-market trend is continuing
Wall Street analysts, many of whom are issuing new forecasts for 2025, are uniformly bullish on stocks heading into year-end, citing the combined impact of Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, a resilient domestic economy, and pro-growth policy proposals from President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
Mary Ann Bartels, chief investment strategist at Sanctuary Wealth, sees the gains lasting even longer.
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“We are in a secular bull market [and] we believe this bull trend has another five years,” she said, adding that “the current phase is similar to the period of 1995-2000 and possibly from 1925-1929.”
During the mid-1990s, which Bartels described as the “first advancement to the Digital Era,” stocks rallied 20% for five years straight while weathering outsized corrections tied to an Asia currency crisis and the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund.
Longer-term S&P target: 10,000?
“For 2025, we expect the S&P 500 to continue its gains with a target range of 7200 to 7400 points,” she argued, citing levels indicating a 24% gain from Friday’s close on Wall Street.
“But we believe the longer-term track is for the S&P 500 over the back end of the decade to reach 8,000-10,000 points,” she added.
“We believe this is fundamentally driven by the productivity gains from AI and a strong U.S. economy, aided by maintaining lower corporate taxes, lower interest rates, and the ongoing stimulus from the Biden Administration’s pieces of legislation that allows companies to continue to post strong earnings growth.”
Related: Analyst revamps S&P 500 target for 2025
Collective third-quarter profits for the S&P 500 are set to rise 8.8% from last year to $527.4 billion and are forecast to add another 9.8% over the final three months of the 2024.
More Wall Street Analysts:
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LSEG data also suggest earnings will rise 14.1% next year, and a recent Wells Fargo update forecast the benchmark’s overall profits at $275 a share amid the potential for new corporate tax cuts and looser regulation from the Trump administration.
Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, sees the U.S. economy growing 2.5% next year, an above-trend forecast tied in part to a resilient labor market, slowing inflation pressures and robust consumer spending.
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