The writer is founder and chief executive of Trivariate Research Many investors are worried that the US equity market is expensive. The problem is that valuation worries alone are uninformative. After all, that was also the prevailing sentiment at the beginning of 2023, before the S&P 500 appreciated nearly another 40 per cent.
Hence, we are seeing sellside analysts forecast more cyclical margin expansion than usual. Nearly three-quarters of the top 500 US equities will expand margins over the next 12 months, according to the consensus of analyst forecasts. And this appears to be the case regardless of the size of the company. While analysts are often poor forecasters, our research shows they are right nearly 75 per cent of the time regarding whether margins are up or down in absolute terms.