According to strategist A. J. Oden of JPMorgan, the S&P 500 index will reach a new all-time high by mid-2024, writes Business Insider.

The S&P 500’s new record suggests a 12% gain from its current record high of 4,796, reached in January 2022. This is largely due to the fact that JPMorgan expects the Fed to cut rates soon, which always pushes stock indexes higher.

After the world’s central banks raised rates last year to bring down inflation, many are now more optimistic about the economy. In particular, the US Federal Reserve’s forecast suggests that personal consumption expenditure inflation will fall to 2% by 2026, and this will be, according to the analyst, a “soft landing.”

Analysts see some tension between a possible rate cut and stock markets, says Richard Flax, chief investment officer at Moneyfarm. The company is leaning toward a scenario in which growth slows and earnings see some decline, Flax noted. “This makes us somewhat cautious about the stock in 2024,” the analyst said. At the same time, Goldman Sachs strategists say the ideal approach is to simply stay invested in stocks and avoid the pressure to sell them during periods of volatility.

26% of Bloomberg survey participants reported that they intend to increase their assets in January: this is above average, the agency notes. 43% of those surveyed said they believe U.S. stocks will continue to outperform global peers in 2024. Investors are turning to the “bad corners” of the small-cap market for bargains, even though the market has been dominated by the Magnificent Seven (Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta) for much of the year, Bloomberg reports. .