"The Wharton Magician" Optimistic Forecast: Recession Concerns Eased, US Stocks Expected to Rise 15% Next Year

Zhitong App learned that Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at the Wharton School of Business known as the "Wizard of Wharton," believes that the U.S. stock market will continue to rise next year, and the recent gains are not only based on expectations of a series of interest rate cuts in the coming months. Siegel, who is optimistic about the U.S. stock market in the long term, predicts that by 2024, the stock market could rise another 10% to 15%, and housing prices could rise 5% to 10%. Siegel also expects that by December next year, the inflation rate will slow to around 2.5%, the risk of an economic recession will be less than 50%, and the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates five to six times next year, bringing rates below 4%.

"I am very bullish on the stock market," Siegel recently stated. He pointed out that although the current price-to-earnings ratio of the market is about 20 times, excluding technology stocks, this ratio would be close to 15 times. Siegel believes that this could pave the way for value stocks to outperform growth stocks in 2024.

The S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq have risen 24% and 44% respectively this year, mainly due to the AI boom and increasing hopes that the threat of inflation has ended, economic recession has been avoided, and interest rates have peaked and will soon fall. The biggest winners are tech stocks such as Tesla (TSLA.US) and NVIDIA, whose stock prices have doubled and tripled this year, respectively.

Siegel's optimism stems from a strong business environment.

"There are no signs of an economic collapse," he said. He pointed out that the U.S. GDP is estimated to have risen in the fourth quarter, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits remains low, inflation has eased, and housing construction remains strong.

"This may be the best news for the market," Siegel continued. He explained that he is not concerned that investors' expectations for the magnitude of interest rate cuts next year will exceed those of the Federal Reserve, as the Federal Reserve does not want to exacerbate inflation and tends to underestimate its expectations. He also believes that the recent stock market rally after the Federal Reserve's policy meeting was not due to investors betting heavily on interest rate cuts next year, but because the Federal Reserve hinted that it would be willing to cut rates if there is an economic recession, which alleviated concerns about a severe downturn.

"The biggest threat is the Federal Reserve's stubbornness in cutting interest rates, and of course, they were also too stubborn in raising rates," Siegel said. "This threat, even if not eliminated, has certainly been mitigated."