In our final edition of 2024, we asked our readers to predict what will happen to stocks in 2025—specifically, which stocks and sectors will be the highest performers of the new year, and whether or not the S&P 500 will surpass Wall Street’s average price target of 6,600.
Let’s keep everything honest and aboveboard and post some of the answers here so we can look back in December and see how right (or wrong) we all were.
First off, 63.8% of you believe the S&P 500 will close above 6,600, while the rest of you are real party poopers.
When we asked which sectors or industries will outperform this year, most of you stuck with the pros and picked tech (AI, semiconductors, and a few even mentioned quantum computing), and energy (utilities, nuclear, oil & gas).
Here are some of our favorite outside-the-box answers from our readers:
- Aerospace and Defense: Lapping easy comps, growing global defense budgets, seen as a safety sector during cyclical upheaval.
- Financials: M&A kicks off again with fewer regulations, and real estate deals supporting AI datacenters adds an additional lending boost.
- Healthcare: Weak biotech performance driven by startups running out of cash and some poor GLP-1 results (in addition to increasing competition) weighed on HC. Stocks are priced to reflect these developments, but long-term secular growth in pharma spending should eventually take hold and drive gains in this undervalued area of the market.
We’d also like to give a special shoutout to the reader who told us, “Your momma is gonna see the biggest gains.” That one really hurt our feelings.
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As for the best-performing stock of 2025, the VAST majority of you stuck with what’s been working and chose either Nvidia or Palantir. A lot of people also mentioned MicroStrategy hitting new highs as bitcoin continues to rise.
These were some of the original stock picks and theses that caught our eye:
- Nike and McDonald’s: Both go back what they’re best at and consumers see what was in both. Nike drives aspirations and McDonald’s gives value for consumers and brings traffic back to stores as the economic situation for low-income consumers heals and discretionary spending increases.
- Intuitive Machines, because of new contracts from NASA and a successful IM-2 and IM-3 landings.
- Cameco Corp., because nuclear reactors require nuclear fuel and they're the second largest miner of uranium in the world.
- Dutch Bros: A young Dunkin / Starbucks that’s going to keep expanding and driving profitability as their new mobile ordering takes hold.
- IONQ: Quantum computing company that is progressing quickly and their quantum computers do not require the prohibitively expensive refrigeration most other competitors' technology requires.
Finally, shoutout to the poor soul who wrote:
- Walgreens, simply because I bought some in 2023 only for it to become one of the worst-performing stocks in 2024 and I could really use a break.
We’ve all been there, buddy. Stay strong.—MR