The S & P 500’s rise to fresh heights in the new year will not be in a straight line, according to RBC Capital Markets. Strategist Lori Calvasina issued a year-end 2025 target for the broad market index of 6,600. That implies upside of 10.6% from Friday’s close. Calvasina’s forecast comes as stocks enjoy a strong postelection bounce. The S & P 500 has rallied 3.2% since Donald Trump secured a second presidential term, raising expectations of lower taxes and deregulation. The benchmark has also reached record levels, breaking above 6,000 for the first time earlier this month. .SPX 3M mountain SPX 3-mo chart “We think it’s fair to say that the US equity market is in a discovery process regarding the domestic policy platform of the new administration and that the political backdrop presents tailwinds and potential headwinds for stocks in the year ahead,” the firm’s head of U.S. equity strategy wrote. “Tailwinds include a clear and known outcome, which may unlock business activity and generate some additional healing in consumer sentiment and some renewed recovery in corporate sentiment, a more business-friendly regulatory and antitrust environment, and the continuation of the status quo on tax rates with the potential for some additional cuts down the road,” she added. To be sure, Calvasina thinks there will be 5%-10% correction in the near term before equities resume their march to all-time highs. “Policy uncertainty remains, some of the new administration’s early appointees have raised the risk of disruption in certain sectors like Health Care, and some investors are worried that Trump’s tariff and immigration policies could impair the recent progress on inflation. What exactly the new administration will do regarding the IRA also remains in focus. Right now, we simply don’t know what the new administration will do in regard to their campaign promises, or the extent to which they will do them, adding to the fog,” she said. She added that high interest rates could start to hurt stocks more broadly in the short term, while noting there is not “a lot of room for further P/E expansion.” The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield is up around 70 basis points since mid-September, last trading at 4.316%. Calvasina is only the latest strategist to put out her 2025 outlook. Last week, Goldman Sachs set a 6,500 target for the S & P 500, while BMO issued a forecast for the benchmark index to surge all the way to 6,700 . Elsewhere Monday morning on Wall Street , Bernstein hiked its price target on MicroStrategy to $600 from $290, implying upside of 42.2%. “MicroStrategy’s (MSTR) Bitcoin treasury model is unprecedented on Wall Street, in our view,” Bernstein said. “A company on an insatiable path to attract billions in global capital to invest in Bitcoin.”
