S&P 500 rally surprises

'MIRACULOUS': STRATEGISTS REVISE FORECASTS AS EXPECTATIONS DEFIED

- Alexandra Semenova and Sagarika Jaisinghani

By this time last year, the stock market's rally had blown past even the most optimistic targets and Wall Street forecasters were convinced it couldn't keep up the dizzying pace.

So as strategists at Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and other big firms sent out their calls for 2024, a consensus took shape.

After surging more than 20% as artificial intelligence breakthroughs unleashed a tech-stock boom and the economy kept defying the doomsayers, the S&P 500 Index would likely scratch out only a modest gain.

As the US Federal Reserve shifted to cutting interest rates, Treasuries were seen as ripe to give equities a run for their money.

What followed, instead, was another humbling experience for Wall Street prognosticators, who have been caught off guard by the market's twists and turns ever since the end of the pandemic.

Rather than lose steam, equity prices soared higher.

By late January, the S&P 500 had already surpassed the average year-end target from strategists.

It went on to hit one record high after another and is heading to a 25% gain in 2024, capping the strongest back-to-back annual runs since the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.