Where is the S&P 500 Headed?

The S&P 500 closed on Monday up 25.8% year to date for 2024. This came on the heels of a 24% rally for the previous full year, 2023. According to research published by Deutsche Bank on Monday, If the S&P 500 holds onto at least a 20% full year gain for 2024, it would only mark the third time ever, really since the conception of the S&P 500's ancestor index that the broadest and most focused upon measure of US large cap equity perfroamnce was able to post back-to-back 20%+ years.

The usually quite bullish and (I think) very bright Ed Yardeni also published a note on Monday. Yardeni lifted his year-end S&P 500 target for 2024 to 6,100, while also lifting his year-end targets for 2025 to 7,000 and his year-end target for 2026 to 8,000. He also sees 10,000 for the S&P 500 by the end of the 2020's. Wow!

Yardeni wrote, "Stock investors are also thrilled by the regime change to a more pro-business administration promoting tax cuts and deregulation." He added that he does not expect a bear market this decade, but there would undoubtedly be a number of corrections over these next few years. To put Yardeni's not succinctly... he wrote "Animal spirits are back."