Welcome to a special New Year's edition of Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast.

It's January 1st, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn.

2024 on Wall Street is in the books.

On the last day of trading, stocks slimped to the finish line with the major averages closing in the red.

The NASDAQ composite fell 0.9%, the SMP 500 lost 0.4%,

and the Dow finished barely down. That made it four straight losing sessions for the S&P to close

out the year. Strategist Ryan Detrick, at Carson Group, notes that it's the longest year-end losing streak

since 1966, but stocks did gain 20% in 1967.

Now, for those keeping score at home, here's how the major asset classes performed last year.

In stocks, the SMP rose 24% to 5881, the NASDAQ composite gained nearly 31% to finish at 19,310, and the Dow Industrials underperformed,

finishing up nearly 13% to 42,544.

In the small cap arena, the Russell 2000 added 10% to 2,230.

In the bond market, the benchmark 10-year treasury yield added 71 basis points to end the year at 4.58%.

The Fed Fund's rate ended the year at a range of 4.5% to 4.5% following a 50 basis point cut in September and 2 quarter point cuts in November and December to close out the year.

WTI crude oil fell 1.3% to 7172 per barrel, while gold rallied 24.5% to $2,624 per ounce, and silver gained 21.5% to 2888 per ounce.

And Bitcoin jumped 111.5% moving into trading in the new year around $94,000.

We look next to what seeking off the subscribers are expecting for the coming year in stocks.

Based on the average from Wall Street Breakfast Sentiment Survey for 2025,

the S&P target for next year is 6,241, an upside of just 6%.

But the biggest cohort of respondents, 54%, see the benchmark index climbing the

6,500, which would result in an increase of 10.5% for the year. Stocks are also seen as the best

asset class, with four-fifths of subscribers putting most of their investing capital there,

...