Wall Street Banks Raise Stock Market Forecasts Due to Growing AI Adoption
Money | June 18, 2024, 5:53 a.m.
The excitement surrounding artificial intelligence is fueling forecasts for the S&P 500 on Wall Street. Analysts from Evercore ISI, Goldman Sachs, and Citi have boosted their year-end targets, with Evercore ISI's Julian Emanuel setting the highest target at 6,000. Investments in generative AI are driving earnings growth at tech giants like Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia, offsetting typical negative revisions to consensus EPS estimates. The market is being led by the "Magnificent Seven" stocks, with more than two-thirds of the S&P 500's gains attributed to Tesla, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia. While some are concerned about market concentration and high valuations, strategists believe that a narrow rally with a few tech stocks leading the market higher is a feature, not a bug, of the benchmark index. Continued outperformance from tech could see the S&P 500 ending the year above 6,000, driven by the ongoing influence of generative AI as an incremental growth driver.