Omaha’s money managers and investing pros expect the Standard & Poor’s 500 to rise about 8 percent this year, boosted in part by tax and regulatory policies expected to be business-friendly.
A World-Herald survey of 10 metro-area portfolio managers and finance experts from academia found an average estimate of 2,425 for the 2017 year-end close of the broad S&P index. That would be about 8 percent higher than the 2016 close of 2,238.83, a year during which the index rose almost 9 percent.
Lower taxes and a lighter regulatory burden were almost universally cited as catalysts for the stock market in 2016; both were major points of emphasis for President-elect Donald Trump. Politics aside — several of the money managers said privately they liked neither Trump nor his opponent, Hillary Clinton — there was widespread agreement that investors will profit from what they described as an increasingly competitive U.S. business climate.