BofA Global Research and Goldman Sachs on Tuesday became the latest Wall Street brokerages to raise their year-end targets for the S&P 500 index, broadly driven by reduced policy uncertainty, resilient corporate earnings and potential interest rate cuts.
BofA lifted the benchmark’s index target to 6300 from 5600, while Goldman upped their target to 6600 from 6100, implying an upside of 1 per cent and about 6 per cent respectively to the last close of 6,229.28.
This marks Goldman’s second upward revision in two months, following a previous increase in early May.
Earlier this year, major brokerages, including BofA, cut their targets below 6,000 after U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April sparked fears of a U.S. recession and escalated global trade tensions, triggering a sell-off in equities.
However, reductions in some tariff rates have since eased investor concerns, diminished recession risks, and driven stocks to record highs last week.
“A resilient outlook for 2026 earnings growth, the resumption of Fed rate cuts, and neutral investor positioning argue for further market upside as the recent narrow rally broadens,” Goldman said in a note late on Monday.
Last month, Barclays, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank had lifted their S&P 500 targets.
Recent softer U.S. economic data have also boosted expectations for further interest rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve that could aid equities.
“Recent inflation data and corporate surveys indicate less tariff pass-through so far than we expected,” Goldman said.
The brokerage also raised its next three-month and 12-month target for the index to 6400 and 6900 from its previous forecast of 5900 and 6500 respectively.
Mr. Trump on Monday intensified his trade war, telling 14 nations, including Japan and South Korea, they now face sharply higher tariffs from a new deadline of August 1.
“We expect the digestion of tariffs to be a gradual process, and large-cap companies appear to have some buffer from inventories ahead of the increase in tariff rates,” Goldman added.
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