By Bryan Perry
March 25, 2025
The level of uncertainty for both the domestic economy and global economy is about as high as I can recall. The April 2nd tariff deadline looms, along with what that means to potential inflation, while the DOGE job cuts have met with the expected resistance, and proposed ceasefires between Ukraine and Russia, or between Israel and Gaza, are met with either mistrust, broken promises or more attacks. The Fed remains uncommitted to targeted rate cuts while weak soft data fails to corroborate the healthier hard data, 999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999and earnings forecasts are more guarded, with the dirty word “stagflation” being thrown around.
Heading into the end of the quarter next Monday, the analyst community still sounds very upbeat on U.S. companies’ sales and earnings prospects, despite the financial media embracing the recession narrative.
According to the latest research by FactSet, there are 12,320 ratings on S&P 500 stocks. Of these ratings, 55.7% are Buys, 38.7% are Holds, and only 5.6% are Sells. For comparison purposes, the five-year month-end average of Buy ratings is 55.0%. The average percentage of Hold ratings is 39.1% and the average percentage of Sell ratings is 5.9%, so all are fairly close to the current rating percentages.
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