"Strategists have lots of interesting things to say, but index targets are mostly a marketing exercise.
They usually call for a gain in the high single-digits because that’s a pretty safe guess—the 50-year
average change in the S&P 500 has been 8.9%."
"Just know that average isn’t typical: There have only been two years in the past 30
when the S&P 500 actually rose by between 5% and 10%."
https://marketsam.cmail20.com/t/d-e-gilnlt-duklntldl-r/
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and equity strategists (top-down) fared in 2024. At the start of 2024, equity analysts expected the S&P 500
to rise by 7.9%, while strategists were outright bearish with an expected increase of 1.9%.
The true return in 2024 was – checks notes – 23%."
Forecast returns vs. actual outcome for the S&P 500
"Well done everyone. Now back to the drawing board and let’s do this all over again.
Never mind that strategists and equity analysts got it wrong practically every year.
Indeed, over the last 20 years, the correlation between forecast returns and actual returns
the following year for bottom-up forecasts was 0.2 for bottom-up forecasts and 0.0 for strategist forecasts."
https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/let-me-fix-those-forecasts-for-you?