📊 2025 S&P 500 Price Targets

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Happy Sunday!

Welcome to the over 25,000 subscribers now reading this newsletter!

What began as a calculated vision is quickly becoming reality, thanks to your support.

• Whether through referrals, providing feedback, or simply engaging, you’ve been a crucial part of this growth.

• Together, we’re building one of the fastest-growing investing newsletters in the world.

As 2024 wraps up with a strong bull market, I look ahead to 2025 with excitement—for another year of growth and prosperity.

Thank you for trusting Carbon Finance as your go-to source for financial news, insights, and visuals.

Here’s to an incredible 2025! 🤝

Some key data bites from this week that you should know:

• US credit card defaults jumped to highest level in 14 years.

• Tesla delivered 495,570 vehicles in Q4, below the 504,770 estimate.

• Nvidia invested $1B across AI startups and corporate deals in 2024.

• Activist investors helped oust 27 CEOs in 2024.

• Walmart, Costco, and Amazon now make up roughly 17% of retail sales.

• Large eggs wholesale prices are up 150% YoY.

• Constellation Energy was awarded $1B in contracts to supply the US government with nuclear energy.

• SEC has written off $10B in fines it couldn’t collect over the last decade.

• Mark Zuckerberg has now received $691M in dividends from Meta.

• TikTok Parent ByteDance is planning to spend $7B on Nvidia chips in 2025.

• Investors poured more than $1T into US ETFs in 2024.

• BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF surpassed $50B AUM in 11 months.

• World’s 500 richest people crossed $10T in wealth.

In today’s newsletter:

• 📊 97 Years Of The S&P 500

• 📈 Best Performing S&P 500 Stocks In 2024

• 📉 Worst Performing S&P 500 Stocks In 2024

• 💪 Nvidia Carried The Index

• 🎯 2025 Price Targets

Let’s jump right in.

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The S&P 500 capped off another stellar year, closing up 23% and just shy of 5,900 in 2024.

• This follows a strong 2023, where the index climbed 24%.

• 2023-2024 marked the S&P 500’s best back-to-back gains since 1997-1998, according to FactSet.

The rally was driven by surging AI stocks, a resilient economy, post-election bullishness, and rate cuts. 

• The index hit 57 all-time highs during the year, as reported by PBS.

So, what does history have to say about this?

• According to Carson Group, since 1950, there have been 8 times when the S&P 500 gained 20% or more two years in a row.

• Based on this, the third year saw positive gains 75% of the time, with an overall average return of 12%.

The market had a strong year, but these stocks had an even better one.

The top 10 best-performing S&P 500 stocks for 2024 all doubled, with Palantir taking the top spot.

• A fair callout is that Palantir joined the index late in the year on September 23rd.

• Still, the big data company delivered an incredible 99% return from its inclusion through year-end, easily cementing its spot as one of the year’s best.

Vistra claimed second place, driven by optimism around its nuclear power plants potentially powering AI data centers, along with strong earnings.

And, of course, no best-performing list is complete without Nvidia.

• The company continued to dominate as demand for its AI chips remained insatiable.

Not everyone can be a winner.

These 10 stocks had a rough year, with many losing roughly 50%.

Walgreens Boots Alliance took the top spot as the worst performer, tumbling 64%.

• A quarter of its stores are losing money, prompting the closure of 1,200 locations over the next 3 years.

• Struggling to stay afloat, Walgreens is reportedly in talks to go private with PE firm Sycamore Partners.

Another name in the red? Intel.

The company failed to capitalize on the AI boom, losing market share to Nvidia and AMD.

• The struggles culminated in the board ousting CEO Pat Gelsinger after failing to turn the company around.

Moderna ranked as the third-worst performer, dragged down by underwhelming COVID vaccine sales and a delay in its profitability target from 2026 to 2028.

Everybody loves Nvidia—even those who don’t own the stock.

• The AI powerhouse was a key driver of the S&P 500’s stellar year, contributing 22% of the index’s performance, according to Howard Silverblatt.

Other Magnificent 7 members—Apple, Amazon, and Meta—added another 19% collectively to the index’s 2024 gains.

Broadcom, another semiconductor giant, chipped in nearly 5%.

Together, these five companies powered almost half of the S&P 500’s total gains for the year.

Warren Buffett once said: "We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good."

Every year, as the calendar flips, major banks and research firms release their predictions for where they expect the S&P 500 to end the following year.

• These price targets often grab headlines, offering insights into market sentiment and outlooks from some of the brightest minds in finance.

• While the research behind these forecasts can be valuable, the actual price targets are often more distracting than they are precise.

Case in point: many firms missed their targets this year and had to revise them multiple times, as they’ve done in the past.

That said, these reports provide compelling data points and varying perspectives that can help shape a well-rounded view of the markets.

• They provide a mix of optimism, caution, and a reflection of broader trends driving the economy.

Here’s a roundup of the latest 2025 S&P 500 price targets and links to the corresponding reports or articles for a deeper dive:

• Oppenheimer Asset Management: 7,100

• Wells Fargo: 7,007

• Yardeni Research: 7,000

• Deutsche Bank: 7,000

• Evercore: 6,800

• HSBC: 6,700

• BMO: 6,700

• Bank of America: 6,666

• Barclays: 6,600

• Fundstrat: 6,600

• UBS: 6,600

• Citi: 6,500

• Goldman Sachs: 6,500

• Morgan Stanley: 6,500

• JPMorgan: 6,500

• S&P 500 (Price today): 5,942

Overall, the future looks bright, with all major banks or research firms projecting the S&P 500 to increase in 2025.

From an earnings perspective, analysts are projecting the S&P 500 to see earnings growth of 14.8% in 2025.

• This is far ahead of the 10-year average annual earnings growth rate of 8% over the last decade.

Notable Companies Reporting Earnings Week of January 6th, 2025:

Here’s what I will be watching this week:

• Wednesday: Jefferies $JEF

• Friday: Delta Airlines $DAL, Tilray Brands $TLRY

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Buys

• Markwayne Mullin (R)

  • Company: Applied Materials ($AMAT)

    • Amount Purchased: $15K - $50K

• Michael Collins (R)

  • Company: Ski Mask Dog ($SKI, Crypto)

    • Amount Purchased: $1K - $15K

Sells

• Markwayne Mullin (R)

  • Company: Axon Enterprise ($AXON)

    • Amount Sold: $30K - $100K

  • Company: Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings ($OLLI)

    • Amount Sold: $30K - $100K

Buys

• Biohaven ($BHVN)

  • Insider: John Childs (Director)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 29,000

    • $ Amount: $1,042,393

    • SEC Forms: [1]

Sells

• Intuit ($INTU)

  • Insider: Sasan Goodarzi (CEO, President and Director)

    • # of Shares Sold: 149,700

    • $ Amount: $47,257,202

    • SEC Forms: [1], [2]

• Netflix ($NFLX)

  • Insider: Reed Hastings (Executive Chairman)

    • # of Shares Sold: 35,868

    • $ Amount: $31,853,790

    • SEC Forms: [1]

• Robinhood ($HOOD)

  • Insider: Vlad Tenev (CEO)

    • # of Shares Sold: 750,000

    • $ Amount: $29,372,100

    • SEC Forms: [1]

🤝 Review of the Week