Goldman Sachs: Investor Positioning Remains Light, S&P 500 Still Has Upside
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The S&P 500 is up 14% year-to-date, yet Goldman's sentiment indicator has dropped to -0.9, matching its March low — money is still on the sidelines, leaving room for further upside if macro uncertainty clears.
The index is rallying — why are investors not fully on board?
Goldman tracks a composite gauge of "how much investors actually own" — nine positioning metrics spanning institutions, retail, and foreign flows. The reading: -0.9, meaning positions are light.
This means → the index gained 14%, but most investors did not ride it with full exposure. This is hesitation, not panic.
In plain terms = prices rose, but wallets stayed cautious. If the macro picture improves, that sidelined capital becomes fresh buying power.
Only a handful of stocks are rising — what is wrong with market breadth?
The S&P 500 sits just 1% below its August all-time high, yet the median constituent trades 16% below its own 52-week high — most stocks are actually down.
Goldman's preferred breadth indicator has fallen to its lowest level since the dot-com bubble.
This means → a few AI mega-caps are carrying the index. If uncertainty fades, laggards have room to catch up — but if the leaders stumble, narrow breadth amplifies the drop.
A 19× multiple — expensive or fair?
The S&P 500 forward P/E — share price divided by expected earnings over the next twelve months — is roughly 19×, in line with the 10-year average. On this measure, it looks reasonable.
But on a different yardstick — the cyclically adjusted P/E smoothed over 10 years — valuations are near historical extremes, below the 1999–2000 peak but above 2021 levels.
In plain terms = near-term earnings make the market look fairly priced; long-term earnings make it look stretched. The gap depends on whether today's unusually high profit margins can last.
What does the rise in rates mean for equities?
Over the report period, the real 10-year Treasury yield climbed 53 basis points. Goldman notes that historically, moves this sharp correlate with weaker equity returns.
Goldman's rates-inflation-profitability model implies the current 19× P/E sits roughly 10% below the model's fair value — not because the market is overly pessimistic, but because investors doubt that abnormally elevated margins will persist.
This reflects a dual squeeze: higher rates raise the opportunity cost of holding stocks and make the market more skeptical about earnings durability.
AI capex — from tailwind to headwind?
Goldman estimates that hyperscale cloud providers — Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and peers — will spend a combined $800 billion in capex this year. That spending accounts for roughly half of the S&P 500's earnings growth in 2025.
But as AI capex growth decelerates and depreciation costs rise, Goldman expects this contribution to fade and eventually turn into a drag; easing semiconductor supply shortages will also compress margins.
This means → AI spending is the earnings engine right now, but the engine is losing speed — the market needs to find the next growth driver.
Can value stocks keep outperforming?
Goldman's sector-neutral long-short value factor — a measure that strips out industry tilts and isolates cheap-vs-expensive stock performance — has gained more than 25% since mid-2025.
But two supporting conditions are fading: ① the valuation gap between cheap and expensive stocks has narrowed, so "bargains" are less compelling; ② Goldman economists expect the economy to sustain near-trend, steady growth — historically an environment that does not favor continued value outperformance.
In plain terms = the value trade rode a double tailwind — wide valuation spreads plus an economic rebound. Both tailwinds are weakening.
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