The stock market’s performance last quarter has set Wall Street expectations for further gains in the second half of the year. <\/p>\n
“I think there’s just more to be excited about than there is to be nervous about,” Baird investment strategist Ross Mayfield told Yahoo Finance. <\/p>\n
Mayfield pointed to falling oil and gasoline prices as an economic tailwind after the US and Iran suspended fighting, along with resilience in the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC<\/a>) and S&P 500 (^GSPC<\/a>). <\/p>\n The broad-based index just saw its strongest quarter in six years as semiconductor stocks took off, while medium- and small-cap companies have also outperformed. <\/p>\n “There’s a lot working,” Mayfield said. “It’s a bull market driven by earnings and liquidity, and those are the kind of things that can keep this going into the 2nd half of the year, and probably, in my opinion, into 2027 as well.” <\/p>\n Kicking off the third quarter, Wall Street remains bullish on technology, with industry analysts predicting a 21% gain in the S&P 500 over the next 12 months, according to FactSet<\/a>. <\/p>\n “You have to see, as we go into earnings season in July, the validation and monetization of AI,” Dan Ives, senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Yahoo Finance last week. <\/p>\n The AI boom is expected to fuel the broader index, with JPMorgan analysts recently upping their year-end forecast to 7,800<\/a> by year-end. <\/p>\n