Advertisement
U.S. markets open in 3 hours 44 minutes
  • S&P Futures

    5,302.25
    -6.00 (-0.11%)
     
  • Dow Futures

    40,132.00
    -12.00 (-0.03%)
     
  • Nasdaq Futures

    18,468.75
    -35.00 (-0.19%)
     
  • Russell 2000 Futures

    2,134.00
    -4.40 (-0.21%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    81.70
    +0.35 (+0.43%)
     
  • Gold

    2,215.90
    +3.20 (+0.14%)
     
  • Silver

    24.54
    -0.21 (-0.86%)
     
  • EUR/USD

    1.0784
    -0.0046 (-0.42%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.1960
    0.0000 (0.00%)
     
  • Vix

    13.02
    +0.24 (+1.88%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2594
    -0.0044 (-0.35%)
     
  • USD/JPY

    151.4570
    +0.2110 (+0.14%)
     
  • Bitcoin USD

    70,674.44
    +807.62 (+1.16%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,968.63
    +36.65 (+0.46%)
     
  • Nikkei 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     

S&P 500 poised to rebound, energy may trail

With the September jobs number behind us, what’s next for the market, and where is it headed through the end of the year?

Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup, notes that the S&P 500 (^GSPC) already hit and retreated from his year-end target of 2,000. “Investors had gotten a bit too enthusiastic, too optimistic based on some of our sentiment metrics. You saw some sell off and now we’re going to retrace our way back up,” he told Yahoo Finance. For good measure, Levkovich notes his 2015 year-end target is a 10% move to 2,200.

Citigroup’s (C) proprietary sentiment index backs up his point. While it does not suggest outright pessimism, he says investors have backed off of the “excessive enthusiasm.” He cautions their index doesn’t show any sort of panic, but rather investors seem to have settled somewhere in the middle.

So if the theme for the rest of the year is to retrace our way to 2,000, what will get us there?

“As oil prices come down, we probably see some consumer stocks acting a bit better,” says Levkovich. ”Retailing, for instance, has been pretty beat up, earnings estimates revisions have been falling. That could get a little bit of a break here to the upside. I’m not fundamentally thrilled with retailing stocks but there is at least a bit of a trade in there.”

Levkovich also notes that should such a set-up persist, energy stocks could have a little trouble. “If oil prices continue to slide, and our commodity research team thinks it will continue to slide due to excess production, then some of those stocks will stay under pressure.”

On top of all that, of course, are the exogenous factors like tensions in Russia, Ebola and ISIS. Levkovich notes there are always uncontrollable factors that could turn to market headwinds. Right now, though, he doesn’t think they have that much bearing on the day-to-day. That, of course, is still something for investors to keep an eye on.

Advertisement