The Year Ahead
Happy New Year and welcome to the first edition of the Week Ahead for 2025.
As it’s still pretty quiet on the company reporting front next week I am using this article to be a bit more ambitious with my look ahead. Rather than just a week, this article will contain some of my thoughts about the outlook for the global stock markets in 2025.
Join the conversation in the comments.
US markets to continue to grow
The US markets remained the envy of the world’s investors in 2024.
The Samp;P 500 climbed 24%, driven by the continued demand for AI shares and the ‘Magnificent 7’. The latter rose by a collective 63% last year, with NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) leading the way, up 178%. Together these seven super-stocks are now worth $17.5trn - that’s equivalent to 40% of the Samp;P 500.
These stocks now also have mega-valuations, trading on an average of 48 times forecast earnings - a level which for many risk-averse Brits leaves an uncomfortable taste. But I am with the fund managers like famed US short seller Carson Block who...