Goldman Sachs strategists raised their target for the S&P 500, saying corporate earnings have been too strong to ignore and that bond yields are remaining stubbornly low.
The investment bank now says the market benchmark could reach 4700 by year-end, up from its previous call of 4300. That implies a gain of just over 6% from the index’s current level.
One of the main factors behind the more upbeat view is that second-quarter earnings are coming in far higher than expected, exceeding expectations by historically wide margins. The Goldman strategists now expect aggregate earnings per share for companies in the S&P 500 will be $207 this year, up from a previous forecast of $193. For 2022, they are expecting aggregate EPS of $212, up from $202.
The forecasts represent respective year-over-year growth of 45% and 2%, as pent-up demand drives this year’s profits past 2019 levels, before growth moderates in 2022. The strategists incorporated a corporate tax-rate increase into their 2022 profit projection, reducing it slightly.
The other key consideration is that valuations could remain fairly high because bond yields remain low. Goldman sees stocks in the index trading at an average of 22.1 times the per-share earnings expected for the 2022, slightly higher than the current 21 times. Low bond yields reduce the appeal of investing in fixed-income securities, as well as increasing the current value of future profits.
“Lower interest rates than expected support a stable forward P/E multiple of 22x,” wrote David Kostin, Goldman Sachs’ chief U.S. equity strategist.
The strategists lowered their forecast for the 10-year Treasury yield to 1.6% from 1.9% by year-end. Yields are now at 1.2%, even as inflation expectations have risen and some market participants have seen buying the debt as a good trade.
Inflation is expected to be a bit over 2% for the long term, according to St. Louis Fed data, and bond investors usually demand a return greater than the rate of inflation. But the 10-year Treasury yield has remained far below expected inflation, even after a period during which some investors were piling into the debt, sending the price up and the yield down.
Goldman’s 2021 target for the S&P 500 implies an earnings yield for stocks that would be 3 percentage points higher than what investors can get from bonds at 1.6%. And that makes stock valuations look reasonable.
The current Goldilocks environment—a sturdy economy, but with low bond yields—is keeping stocks in favor.
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