The S&P 500, the world’s leading stock market index, is on track to close the year at record highs. Last Thursday, it closed at 6,900 points for the first time and still has an upward trajectory of 10% for next year, according to Goldman Sachs, which values the index at 7,600 points in 2026. The recovery will be sustained by ‘robust economic growth in the US,’ according to the American bank, a still weak dollar and solid corporate earnings. Earnings per share for the S&P 500 will grow by 12% in 2026, with 46% of this increase coming from the seven largest companies in the S&P, the tech giants. UBS predicts that the S&P will reach 7,700 points by the end of 2026.
Goldman Sachs points out that these seven large S&P 500 stocks (Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Broadcom and Meta) currently account for 36% of the index’s capitalisation and 26% of its earnings and will be a key pillar for the continued recovery of the stock market. They will contribute 46% to the 12% growth in earnings per share that the US giant expects for the index in 2026. However, this increase will be slightly lower than the 50% that will contribute to the increase in S&P earnings per share this year. Thus, earnings for the remaining 493 stocks in the index will accelerate from 7% growth in 2025 to 9% in 2026, according to Goldman Sachs’ calculations. ‘The increase in sales and above-average margins of the capitalisation giants will be an automatic boost for the S&P 500 as a whole,’ says Goldman. For example, if Nvidia’s sales grow 50% in 2026 and margins remain stable, the S&P 500’s profit margin would increase by 30 basis points thanks to this company alone.
For 2027, Goldman Sachs forecasts a 10% increase in earnings per share for the US index, slightly below the 12% forecast for 2026. The entity does not foresee a notable boost in the productivity of S&P companies thanks to artificial intelligence in the next two years, only a growth of 0.4% in 2026 and 1.5% in 2027. ‘The process of adopting AI is still in its early stages, but large companies report more progress so far than small ones,’ says Goldman Sachs, which believes that the potential increase in productivity as a result of AI use ‘will gradually consolidate over time.’
UBS also has a positive outlook for US equities and estimates that the S&P 500 will end next year at 7,700 points, representing a potential 12% gain. It justifies its estimate with resilient growth in economic activity and corporate profits in the US, further rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and ‘continued investment and monetisation of AI’.
With regard to artificial intelligence, the Swiss bank acknowledges that it is closely monitoring the risk of oversupply in infrastructure related to this technology. “At present, the market continues to experience supply constraints, and we believe this situation will continue for at least the next few quarters. It should be noted that building data centres takes time and that some of the largest developments will not be ready until the end of the decade,‘ explains UBS. In any case, the Swiss company considers in its baseline scenario that ’the factors that have driven US market gains over the past two years are likely to remain in place, which would boost equities in 2026”. In an even more favourable scenario, with a decrease in geopolitical tension and tariffs and with artificial intelligence bearing fruit in terms of productivity and profits sooner than expected, UBS believes that the S&P could reach 8,400 points.