Wall Street analysts are beginning to rethink their projections for 2019

The "roller coaster" on which the stock markets were subjected has prompted many Wall Street analysts to revise their projections for 2019. This is yet another sign of the anxiety that reigns in the minds of investors, traders and analysts, and the bullish market is approaching its tenth anniversary.

The brutal sell-off in December and the continuing worries about the health of the world economy continued to keep the indexes at levels well below record levels.

Volatility shows no signs of reassuring soon, and the S & P500 barely stays in positive territory since the beginning of the year, taking into account its worst start from the financial crisis so far. Analysts from Citigroup to BMO Capital Markets have already lowered their forecasts where the broad indexes will end the year.

Tobias Levkovich, chief analyst at Citigroup, lowered his forecast for the S & P500 to end the year at about 2,800 out of 3,100, citing heavy sell-offs in December, which barely hit the sword index. BMO Capital predicts the S & P500 to finish at around 3,000 points from its earlier forecast - 3,150. By Credit Suisse, an even lower forecast of 2,925 out of 3,350.

In the coming days, investors with interest will watch the Fed's minutes, where they will look for additional signs and explanations about the central bank's vision of the economy and monetary policy. The reason banks and analysts to revise their forecasts is because the initial publications were in November and early December 2018, before the sharp sell-off. The initial targets that were set could have been achieved with relatively moderate stock growth, but at present they seem rather difficult to achieve.

Goldman Sachs maintains a target of 20,000 for the S & P 500 of 3,000, including BTIG, share the same opinion. Wells Fargo also maintain their target of 2,910. BMO analysts calm down with a little bit of statistics: the S & P500 has always struggled after a certain leap in volatility, but then reports strong gains over a consecutive period of three, six even 12 months.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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