Market guru Yardeni sees S&P 500 hitting 8,250 this year, highest among top Wall Street forecasters, as earnings bolster ‘Roaring 2020s’

Yardeni Research President Ed Yardeni, who has been beating the drum about another Roaring Twenties since the decade began, is even more optimistic on stocks this year as recent earnings are driving a meltup. On Sunday, the market veteran hiked his year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 8,250 from 7,700—making him the most bullish among top Wall Street forecasters. Yardeni’s call now tops views at Oppenheimer (8,100), Deutsche Bank (8,000), Morgan Stanley (7,800), Citigroup (7,700), JPMorgan (7,600), and Goldman Sachs (7,600). To be sure, some firms will likely boost their predictions as more earning roll in. But JPMorgan already raised its view on the S&P 500 late last month, reversing a cut it made earlier to 7,200. Yardeni pointed out that while he has been upbeat on earnings, Wall Street is already ahead of him, even after lifting his outlook. “We’ve never seen consensus earnings expectations rise so quickly for the current and coming years as they have in recent months,” he said in a note. “The result has been an earnings-led meltup in the stock market.” He sees earnings per share among the large-cap companies coming in at $330 this year, up from an earlier view for $310, with 2027 EPS seen at $375, up from $350. Similarly, his forecasts for S&P 500 revenue per share went by $100 for both 2026 and 2027 to $2,200 and $2,300, respectively, nearly matching the current consensus. “Our key assumption is that the economy will remain resilient, and so will earnings,” Yardeni added. “That’s been our mantra since we first started writing about the Roaring 2020s during the summer of 2020.” Not only did the U.S. economy bounce back quickly from the COVID pandemic, it weathered the supply shock from Russia’s war on Ukraine, aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, and President Donald Trump’s trade war. In fact, Yardeni hiked the probability that the Roaring 2020s will continue to 80% from 6