Key Takeaways
- A recent survey found that more than two-thirds of financial advisors expect the S&P 500 will rise more than 10% in 2025.
- While advisors are generally bullish about the market next year, the vast majority also anticipate seeing at least one correction.
- Advisors are making changes to their clients’ portfolios next year, such as reducing their exposure to cash, which has offered lower yields since the Fed cut rates.
Financial advisors expect the stock market’s bull run to continue in 2025, but not without spells of turbulence.
More than two-thirds of the 650 advisors surveyed by InspereX, an underwriter of fixed-income securities, said they expected the S&P 500 to be up more than 10% in 2025. So far this year, the S&P 500 has climbed more than 25%.
Despite the confidence in strong returns for stocks, advisors caution that there likely to be volatility. Roughly 80% said they expect to see at least one correction or more in the broad-based index.
How To Prepare For Stock Market Volatility
To prepare for volatility, 72% of advisors said they’re adding downside protection to their client’s portfolios.
More than half (52%) of financial advisors said they would reduce their clients’ cash and cash-equivalent holdings in 2025. Since September, the Federal Reserve has cut its influential federal funds rate twice, causing interest rates and yields on high-yield savings accounts and money market funds to fall.
Advisors say they’re compensating for the loss of income from cash by investing more in other securities: 55% say they’re increasing their client exposure to dividend-paying stocks.