CAC 40 Down Marginally In Cautious Trade

By Steve Goldstein

Oppenheimer strategists target 8,100 for the S&P 500 by end of 2026

The new Wall Street high for S&P 500 forecasts is 8,100.

It could have been a moment for a victory lap.

On Dec. 9, 2024, Oppenheimer Asset Management strategists led by John Stoltzfus set a 7,100 year-end target for the S&P 500 SPX. Roughly a year later, that target is just 3% away. The problem is, the Oppenheimer team didn't hold their nerve after seeing the freefall from the April "Liberation Day" tariff announcement and cut the price target down to 5,950, before deciding at the end of July that 7,100 was the right call after all.

As far as four-month predictions go, it still was a pretty good one, and Stoltzfus and Co. are back with their S&P 500 target for the end of 2026, which is 8,100 - the highest forecast on all of Wall Street. (Deutsche Bank is close behind at 8,000, and the median of the forecasts compiled by MarketWatch is at 7,500.)

The reason is simple enough. The economy, and corporate profits, held up better than forecast. Why should that stop? "Our positive outlook for the S&P 500 is based on a number of factors that include persistent resilience evidenced in U.S. economic data, S&P 500 corporate results throughout most of this year beating expectations. This, in our view, augurs for further improvement in corporate results in 2026," they say.

They expect a rate cut on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve, and then one or two more in 2026. (The market is expecting at least another two cuts in 2026.)

"At the core of what lies ahead for our 2026 target price to be achieved lies monetary policy, fiscal policy and the continuing progress of innovation and corporate earnings growth, all of which have been supportive of stock prices and are key to growing earnings and revenues in the year ahead," they say.

They have outperform ratings on information technology XLK as well as consumer discretionary XLY and industrials XLI, while having underperform on healthcare XLV, energy XLE and real estate . The consumer, they say, is not dead.

"We note that while surveys of consumer sentiment (soft data) reflect concern by the consumer near term about inflation and the health of the economy, the hard data or sales data persists in showing that the consumer continues to shop if somewhat selectively and at a slower pace reflective of some sensitivity to prices," they say.

The market

As Fed week begins, U.S. stock futures (ES00) (NQ00) edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury BX:TMUBMUSD10Y also rose.

   Key asset performance                                                Last       5d      1m     YTD      1y 
   S&P 500                                                              6870.4     0.85%   0.56%  16.81%   13.51% 
   Nasdaq Composite                                                     23,578.13  0.91%   2.49%  22.10%   18.72% 
   10-year Treasury                                                     4.148      5.60    2.70   -42.80   -5.50 
   Gold                                                                 4243.7     -0.50%  2.92%  60.79%   58.17% 
   Oil                                                                  60.19      1.14%   0.23%  -16.25%  -11.68% 
   Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points 

The buzz

There's a new analyst at Morgan Stanley covering Tesla (TSLA), who cut the firm's rating to equal-weight from overweight.

IBM (IBM) is expected to announce an $11 billion deal to buy data-infrastructure company Confluent (CFLT), according to the Wall Street Journal.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) slipped in premarket trade after President Donald Trump indicated his administration was likely to closely scrutinize Netflix's (NFLX) planned purchase of studio and streaming assets.

Magnum Ice Cream is trading for the first time in London, Amsterdam and New York after being spun out of Unilever (UL).

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The chart

Demand for office space in New York City took a big turn higher in the third quarter. "The improvement is consistent with increasing return-to-office mandates. According to Placer AI, New York (along with Miami) continues to lead the nation in terms of returning workers to the office," say economist at Wells Fargo. "The outperformance appears to be owed to the dense clusters of advanced service industries, e.g. banking, finance and legal services, where RTO has been more prevalent."

Top tickers

Here were the most active stock-market tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m. Eastern.

   Ticker  Security name 
   NVDA    Nvidia 
   TSLA    Tesla 
   GME     GameStop 
   TSM     Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 
   PLTR    Palantir Technologies 
   SMX     SMX (Security Matters) 
   AMD     Advanced Micro Devices 
   CETX    Cemtrex 
   META    Meta Platforms 
   AAPL    Apple 

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-Steve Goldstein

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Germany's benchmark DAX moved higher Monday morning, as stronger than expected industrial data aided sentiment. However, the upside was just marginal as investors remained a bit cautious ahead of monetary policy announcements from central bank, including the Federal Reserve, this week.

The Swiss National Bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of Canada are also scheduled to announce their rate decisions this week.

The DAX was up 43.33 points or 0.18% at 24,082.04 slightly before noon.

Bayer climbed 3.2% and Rheinmetall surged 2.5%. Siemens Energy, Fresenius, MTU Aero Engines and Deutsche Bank gained 1 to 1.3%.

Meanwhile, GEA Group drifted lower by 3.4%, Brenntag, Beiersdorf and Daimler Truck Holding lost 1.3 to 1.6%.

Vonovia, SAP, BASF, Symrise, SAP, BASF, Qiagen and Merck dropped by 0.7 to 1.1%.

Shares of Germany metals company Kloeckner and Co shares soared 25%. The company has confirmed it is in discussions regarding a potential voluntary takeover offer from U.S. metals processor Worthington Steel.

Car parts supplier Stabilus slid more than 6% after its profit fell in fiscal 2025, impacted by unfavorable market conditions, the global tariff conflict, and the higher pricing pressure in the automotive business.

Dtat from Destatis showed Germany's industrial output logged a monthly growth of 1.8% in October. Economists were expecting the increase to ease sharply to 0.2% from a revised 1.1% rise posted in September.

In three months to October, industrial production was 1.5% lower than in the previous three months.

On a yearly basis, industrial production gained 0.8%, in contrast to the 1.4% decrease in September.

Excluding energy and construction, industrial production grew 1.5% from September and was down 0.1% from the previous year.

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India's BSE Sensex closed about 0.7% down at 85,103 on Monday, erasing gains from the previous two sessions, as traders opted to book some profits ahead of the Fed's policy decision later this week.

At the same time, ongoing uncertainty over a trade deal with the US and sustained foreign outflows remained a major drag.

All sectors posted declines, with heavyweight information technology and financials among the hardest hit.

India's BSE Sensex closed about 0.7% down at 85,103 on Monday, erasing gains from the previous two sessions, as traders opted to book some profits ahead of the Fed's policy decision later this week.

At the same time, ongoing uncertainty over a trade deal with the US and sustained foreign outflows remained a major drag.

All sectors posted declines, with heavyweight information technology and financials among the hardest hit.

In Mumbai, the SENSEX Index fell 610 points or 0.71 percent on Monday.

Leading the losses are Indusind Bank (-3.46%), Nestle India (-2.56%) and Tata Steel (-2.28%).

Top gainers were Tech Mahindra (1.22%) and HCL Tech (0.12%).

The CAC 40 slipped 0.3% to around 8,080 points on Monday, extending last Friday’s modest losses, as investors remained cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve’s policy decision on Wednesday.

A third rate cut is widely expected, though uncertainty over the 2026 outlook persists.

At the same time, attention turned to the ECB after official Isabel Schnabel said she is comfortable with market bets that the central bank’s next move could be a rate increase.

Among individual stocks, L’Oréal fell 1.6% despite strengthening its partnership with Swiss dermatology group Galderma by acquiring an additional 10% stake, bringing its total ownership to 20%.

Other consumer names also retreated, including Hermès (-1.7%), LVMH (-1.1%), Kering (-0.6%), Pernod Ricard (-1.2%), and Essilor (-0.3%).

In contrast, aerospace stocks gained, led by Thales (+1.2%), Safran (+0.8%), and Airbus (+0.3%), while industrials also advanced, with Legrand (+0.7%) and Vinci (+0.6%) posting modest increases.