As the U.S. election approaches, it seems that the U.S. stock market is also feeling the tension. Goldman Sachs strategists believe that the U.S. stock market will continue to rise after the election results are announced.

On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs' Chief U.S. Equity Strategist David Kostin said in an interview with Bloomberg that the S&P 500 index will reach 6,000 points in a year. This means that starting from Monday's closing historical high of 5,719 points, the index still has about a 5% upward space. So far this year, the index has risen by nearly 21%.

However, he also pointed out that in the coming weeks, as the election enters the final "sprint" moment, investors will have to go through some market fluctuations. Historically, this is a period when volatility tends to rise and stock prices fall:

"Elections are inherently uncertain, which may cause some concerns in the short term. But as the election results become clear, the stock market usually rebounds after the election."

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It is worth noting that since the end of last year, Kostin has raised his expectations for the S&P 500 index three times after releasing the target price forecast for 2024. Recently, due to the expectation of short-term fluctuations brought by the "White House battle," he reiterated his target price of 5,600 points for the S&P 500 index at the end of the year.

Currently, Bloomberg data shows that the average target price tracked by Bloomberg's strategists is close to 5,523 points. Since the beginning of this year, many companies and strategists have raised their expectations. Rubner even expects the S&P index to reach 6,000 points by the end of this year after experiencing some fluctuations.

In addition, Kostin is also optimistic about mid-cap stocks, pointing out:

"Mid-cap stocks have performed better than large-cap and small-cap stocks in the long term, with lower price-to-earnings ratios and higher value... Mid-cap stocks have performed well in the three months and 12 months after interest rate cuts."

He also said that the current focus is on mid-cap stocks because this is the market segment that many portfolio managers pay the least attention to, and "this is a field that is truly likely to outperform the market in the next year."

In Kostin's view, strong corporate earnings will become the main driving force for stocks in the coming months, and he believes that concerns about the weak trend in labor market data are exaggerated.On Tuesday evening, a report released by the Conference Board in the United States showed that due to increased concerns about the future labor market and overall economic outlook, the U.S. consumer confidence index in September fell sharply by 6.9 points to 98.7, lower than expected and marking the largest decline since August 2021.

Economists mainly attribute the recent rise in unemployment rates to the increase in labor supply and temporary friction brought about by new immigrants, rather than a sudden decline in labor demand.

Later last week, Kostin's team stated:

"The slowdown in labor cost growth is beneficial to corporate profit margins and will have a positive impact on U.S. stocks, especially for companies with higher labor costs."