The S&P 500 was up about 24% in 2023 and has similarly gained 27.8% this year. Cooling inflation, a less-hawkish Fed, an AI boom, a tech rally and an improvement in corporate earnings have led the key Wall Street stock index to log more than 20% gain in back-to-back years. But will the rally continue in 2025?

The Wall Street analysts have mixed views on this, with some predicting more muted returns for 2025, while brokerage houses like Wells Fargo WFC are more bullish in their outlook. This puts focus on exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO and SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust DIA. While the S&P 500-based ETFs gained more than 25% this year, the ETF DIA is up 18.8%.

Wells Fargo Sets S&P 500 Target at 7,007

Wells Fargo equity strategist Christopher Harvey and his team issued a bold 2025 year-end target of 7,007 for the S&P 500 (^GSPC). This forecast marks the highest among Wall Street strategists tracked by Yahoo Finance, predicting a potential rise of over 26% next year. The target narrowly surpasses Deutsche Bank and Yardeni Research, both projecting the index to close 2025 at 7,000.

Favorable Macro Environment Expected

Harvey anticipates that the macro environment under the Trump administration, combined with a gradual reduction in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, will create favorable conditions for stocks. Corporate margins expansion, stronger economic growth and potential for increased merger and acquisition activities will likely drive market growth next year.

Continued Improvement in Profitability Across Businesses

Through Nov. 22^nd, we have seen Q3 results from 476 S&P 500 members, or 92.2% of the index’s total membership. Total earnings for these 476 companies that have reported are up 8.1% from the same period last year on 5.5% higher revenues, with 73.7% of the companies beating EPS estimates and 61.8% beating revenue estimates. The proportion of these 476 index members beating both EPS and revenue estimates is 51.1%.

Stronger Economic Growth

The U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a 2.8% annualized rate in the third quarter of 2024. On a year-end basis, S&P Global expects growth to come in at 2.0% in the fourth quarter of 2024, down from 3.1% in fourth-quarter 2023.

Apart from continued weakness in the housing and manufacturing sectors, most recent activity indicators suggest economic growth momentum continues to run slightly above trend, though it has moderated since the fourth quarter of last year.