Citigroup, UBS lift S&P 500 year-end targets echoing Wall Street peers

Citigroup and UBS Global Research became the latest Wall Street brokerages to raise their year-end targets for the S&P 500 index, pointing to receding policy risks and resilient corporate earnings.

Citi bumped the benchmark index’s target to 6,600 from 6,300 and UBS to 6,100 from 5,500, implying an upside of 3.2 per cent and a downside of 4.7 per cent respectively to the index’s last close.

This marks Citigroup’s second upward revision in just two months. UBS, however, had trimmed its target in April after U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs.

The moves follow similar upgrades from major brokerages including HSBC, Goldman Sachs and BofA Global Research.

Oppenheimer Asset Management sees the index climbing as high as 7,100, the highest on Wall Street. Jefferies is the only brokerage to set a target lower than 6,000 at 5,600.

UBS expects a short-term dip in the market, it said in a note on Monday, with the index correcting to 5,900 around late third quarter before recovering to 6,100 by the end of 2025 and 6,800 by the end of 2026.

Citi analysts said in a note late on Friday that the expected fundamental drag from U.S. tariffs has been mostly modeled at this point and that tax benefits from Trump’s spending bill should improve corporate earnings.

The bill, signed into law on July 4, 2025, delivers sweeping corporate tax relief.

Since bottoming on April 8 after Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, the benchmark index has rebounded 32.2 per cent, reaching new highs in July as robust Big Tech earnings revived investor confidence in the AI-driven rally.

Citi said impressive earnings from the “Magnificent Seven” tech companies have anchored the rise of the index. The rest of the index is starting to strengthen more broadly, it said.

(Reporting by Joel Jose in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)