Scott Chronert, an American stock strategist at Citigroup, said that the rise in US tech giants' stock prices may continue to push the S&P 500 index to a new high. He raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 index from 5,100 points to 5,600 points.
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Citigroup and US stock strategist Scott Chronert said that the rise in US tech giants' stock prices may continue to push the S&P 500 index to a new high. He raised the year-end target for the S&P 500 index from 5,100 points to 5,600 points, and pointed out that the “Big Seven” of US stocks will continue to strengthen, and market expectations for profit growth in other S&P 500 index constituents will also expand.
After Goldman Sachs and Evercore ISI, Citi is the third company to raise its year-end target for the S&P 500 index after US stocks closed last Friday. These three institutions are currently the most optimistic about US stocks. US stocks are expected to rise by about 2% or more from the current level, while the general forecast is that they will fall.
Scott Chronert said, “The weighting effect of large growth stocks has had a huge impact on the price movement of the index.” He added that the traditional approach of setting goals based on the macroeconomic context seemed “inappropriate.”
The strong performance of the US economy and corporate profits, as well as optimism that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year, once again prompted Wall Streeters to update their forecasts in order to catch up with the rise in US stocks. The S&P 500 index reached a new high on Monday, closing at 5473.23 points. It has accumulated a cumulative increase of about 15% since this year, far higher than the 5,275.18 point year-end target predicted by the strategists tracking Bloomberg on average, and this average predicted year-end target was even obtained when a wave of institutions raised their year-end targets for the S&P 500 index.
On Friday, Goldman Sachs stock strategists led by David Kostin predicted that the S&P 500 would close at 5,600 points by the end of this year, higher than their February forecast of 5,200 points. This is the third time this year that the strategist raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 index. Additionally, Evercore ISI chief stock and quantitative strategist Julian Emanuel raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 to 6,000 points due to the boom in artificial intelligence, which is the highest forecast given by major stock strategists tracked by Bloomberg.
At the same time, Scott Chronert and his team also raised the 2024 earnings per share forecast for the S&P 500 index from $245 to $250, while also raising the forecast for the 2025 S&P 500 earnings per share to $270. They also forecast that the S&P 500 index will rise to 5,700 points and 5,800 points by the middle and end of 2025, respectively. The strategists said that what is inherent in these predictions is an assessment of three impacts: Nvidia (NVDA.US), other “Big Seven”, and other components of the S&P 500 index.