Goldman Sachs has released a report forecasting an 11% return for the S&P 500 index by the end of the year, with expectations that it will reach 6,500 points, primarily driven by corporate earnings growth. The report estimates that this year's earnings per share will grow by 11%, with a 7% growth projected for the following year. The price-to-earnings ratio is expected to remain around 21.5 times by year-end.
Goldman Sachs highlighted that last year the S&P 500 index achieved a total return of 25%, marking the second consecutive year with returns exceeding 20%. The last occurrence of such consecutive high returns was in 1998 and 1999. Nearly half of last year's annual return was attributed to five major stocks: Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL, Financial), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Broadcom (AVGO).
