According to a poll of over 300 equity analysts and fund managers, participants showed that the 19 stock indices surveyed are expected to rise between now and the end of the year but at a slower pace than expected three months prior.
“We think the (bull market) is going to continue but we’re later into the cycle, so the returns we’re expecting are lower than what we got earlier in the cycle,” Jill Carey Hall, equity and quantitative strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told Reuters.
The S&P 500 is expected to rise about 6% by June next year and end 2016 at 2,207, or 10% above Friday’s close and 5% above where it was expected to round off this year.
Year-to-date, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY), iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: IVV) and Vanguard 500 Index (NYSEArca: VOO) dipped about 0.3%.
Looking at the global equities market, the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF (NasdaqGS: ACWI), which tries to reflect the performance of the MSCI ACWI Index, dropped 4.2% so far this year while the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (NYSEArca: VT), which follows the FTSE Global All Cap Index, fell 3.9%.
Financial advisors who are interested in learning more about major investment themes for 2016 can register for the Tuesday, December 15 webcast here.