The Super Bowl for market analysts - casting their coming year market predictions! 2019 was a strong year for the markets. On the year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) posted 22.3%, S&P 500 gained 28.9%, while the Nasdaq outpaced both with a rally of 35.2%.
This year's predictions (all based on the S&P 500) range by 300 points, or roughly 9% of current market prices. For reference, the S&P 500 closed 2019 at 3,231.
Of the following analysts, the average market return for 2020 is 3,333 or just over 3% while the median falls at 3,375 or about 4.5%.
| Firm | Analyst | 2020 S&P Target |
|---|---|---|
| Piper Jaffray | Piper Jaffray Research | 3,600 |
| BTIG | Julian Emanuel | 3,450 |
| Fundstrat | Tom Lee | 3,450 |
| Canaccord Genuity | Tony Dwyer | 3,440 |
| CFRA | Sam Stovall | 3,435 |
| Credit Suisse | Jonathan Golub | 3,425 |
| BMO | Brian Belski | 3,400 |
| Evercore ISI | Dennis DeBusschere | 3,400 |
| Goldman Sachs | David Kostin | 3,400 |
| JPMorgan Chase | Dubravko Lakos-Bujas | 3,400 |
| Wells Fargo | Chris Harvey | 3,388 |
| Citigroup | Tobias Levkovich | 3,375 |
| RBC Capital Markets | Lori Calvasina | 3,350 |
| Scotiabank | Hugo Ste-Marie | 3,350 |
| Ned Davis | Ed Clissold | 3,325 |
| Bank of America | Savita Subramanian | 3,300 |
| Barclays | Maneesh Deshpande | 3,300 |
| Jefferies | Sean Darby | 3,300 |
| Stifel Nicolaus | Barry Bannister | 3,265 |
| Deutsche Bank | Binky Chadha | 3,250 |
| Societe Generale | Sophie Huynh | 3,050 |
| Morgan Stanley | Mike Wilson | 3,000 |
| UBS | Francois Trahan | 3,000 |
While estimates among research shops rarely share a consensus, one takeaway we can extrapolate from this year's predictions are that nobody expects markets to swing in a dramatic direction. Whether we end the year positive or negative, analysts are not expecting home runs or market collapses.
