S&P 500 rally may have further to go

The S&P 500 rose 0.8 percent to a new record high last week. It was its third consecutive weekly gain.

Some analysts think that the rally will continue.

Sue Chang at MarketWatch wrote: “The juggernaut of optimism unleashed by President Donald Trump’s presidency will continue to steamroll its way through the market, paving the way for stocks to carve out new highs and keep hungry bears at bay.”

“The case for U.S. equities is strong,” Binky Chadha, chief strategist at Deutsche Bank, wote in a report. “A V-shaped recovery in gross domestic product and earnings growth, unfolding for a year now, has further to go.”

Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, head of US equity strategy at JP Morgan Chase & Co., expects corporate tax cuts to boost S&P 500’s earnings per share by $8 while David Kostin, chief US strategist at Goldman Sachs, projected adjusted earnings per share among S&P 500 companies will rise 5 percent.

However, Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James, thinks stocks will not be able to rise further without a near-term correction.

Indeed, NorthmanTrader.com founder Sven Henrich told CNBC that fewer and fewer stocks are moving above their 50-day moving averages. “So, that shows underlying weakness as we are stretching to go to higher prices.”