- 2023 was predicted by most Wall Street analysts to be a difficult year for the stock market.
- However, despite all of this negativity, stocks rose this year, with the benchmark S&P 500 index rising 25%.
- Better-than-expected GDP and the emergence of AI drove the unexpected bounce in equities.
Many Wall Street experts believed at the beginning of the year that stocks would have a difficult year following a disastrous 2022 that finally burst the “everything bubble”; nevertheless, their pessimistic forecast proved to be unfounded.
Rather, important stock indices have surged, with the benchmark S&P 500 seeing a 25% gain at year’s conclusion. In the meantime, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 4,500 points to reach a new all-time high, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite surged 44%.
Bleak perspectives
Those kinds of figures appeared unlikely, if not unachievable, back in January.
Following their worst year since the financial crisis, stocks were experiencing a severe bear market due to increasing interest rates and excessive inflation.
That made Wall Street feel gloomy.
Twenty-two of the leading strategists were surveyed by Bloomberg in December 2022, and their expectations for the S&P 500 were just 7% on average. Notable financial organisations who predicted a mediocre year for stocks included JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley.
They all agreed that the gauge would decline during the first half of the year as the US economy entered a recession, then rebound in the second half of the year.
AI and robust growth drive the rally
Luckily for investors, the strategists proved to be completely incorrect. With the exception of a few calm summer months and a brief panic in the fourth quarter brought on by rising bond rates, the post-October 2022 boom in stocks persisted for the majority of this year.
The fact that a long-expected recession never materialized was crucial to the boom.
The US economy has proven remarkably resilient, with the country’s GDP growing at its quickest rate in two years during the third quarter, thanks in part to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.
A significant surge in interest in artificial intelligence was also witnessed in the industry, mostly as a result of ChatGPT’s rapid expansion, which attracted investors to acquire comparable companies.
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