It wasn’t all that long ago when major brokerage firms were throwing in their 2025 upside projections for the stock market. After originally calling for 10% upside this year, the tariff-induced panic selling led to a full-blown market correction. Strategists and analysts were in panic-mode with massive price target cuts almost daily. Zoom forward into May — and poof! Now we are seeing upside calls all over again.
There is a strong lesson in here for strategic investors.
Goldman Sachs Research has now issued a call for the S&P 500 index to rise to 6,500 in the next 12 months. That’s roughly 10% higher than the 5,950 level at the present time and reversing its prior view. The reason is the actual effects of President Trump’s tariff policies with its largest trade partners. There is some irony here because this tariff disruption was what made all the strategists panic with lower S&P 500 projections just 45 to 60 days ago.
Goldman Sachs’ David Kostin raised his S&P 500 forecast after the U.S. and China stood down from trade war tariff hikes and set lower tariff rates. The firm also sees better economic growth and it has lowered its recession odds to just 35% over the next 12 months. Kostin is now targeting 1.5% GDP growth for 2025 as well.
Kostin’s new take:
“Investors have generally embraced the view that there’s an off-ramp for some of these hefty tariffs… I think that largely is priced in the market.”
Goldman Sachs has even brought up its outlook that “US exceptionalism” will allow for US GDP growth and market returns to outshine other regions. While that view differs (somewhat), the current take is that U.S. investors aren’t shying away from their domestic market. At the same time, European investors have shown “an increased bias toward repatriating assets to their home markets.”
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This change of heart is simply what happens on Wall Street. When markets panic, the attitudes sour and forecasts go down. And as markets recover, the attitude and price targets adjust higher.
Imagine if strategists told clients when everyone was happy that maybe they should trim some gains because the market was pricing in perfection. And then imagine if those strategists said sentiment was signaling the end of the world when the reality is just a mere slowdown. That’s life in the markets sometimes.
All in all, this is just proof that investors need to be opportunistic and rotate assets when conditions merit. And maybe not panic just because of uncertainty. Oh, isn’t that exactly what strategic investors are supposed to do?
