Despite bearish consensus predictions of the equity market at the start of last year,

US stocks powered higher to near record highs in 2023.

So can stocks in the US economy repeat this strong performance in 2024.

When people say, do you think this will continue?

It depends on whether you're talking about positive returns or if you're talking about this

magnitude of returns and this magnitude of U.S. outperforming non-U.S. stocks. of this year for US equities is mid single digit. We're saying about 6% for the

S&P 500 for example. So definitely nothing like what we were expecting last

year. I'm Allison Nathan and this is Goldman Sachs exchanges.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking again with my colleague Charmian Masavar Romani who is the head of the Investment Strategy Group

or what we call ISG within GS Asset and Wealth Management, and the Chief Investment Officer of G.S.

Wealth Management.

Charmin and her team recently published their 16th annual outlook titled,

America Powers On, which outlines ISG's investment themes and recommendations for clients for the year ahead.

Sharmine, happy new year and welcome back to the program.

Happy new year, too, too. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Charmine, when we last sat down about a year ago, investors, as you might recall, were very

bearish on the outlook for U.S. equities, but you and your team were calling for a substantial

upside.

I think your base case forecast for S&P 500 returns was around 13% if I'm not mistaken and you had an upside case closer to 30% in a good scenario. So as we all know, the S&P 500

did have an amazing year up 26% in 2023.

What did you see that others didn't?

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