The S&P 500 is up 16% on the year and may continue to rise—but avoid this 1 investing move (2024)

By just about any measure, 2024 has been a tumultuous year.

Violent conflicts continue to rage on abroad as political turmoil has come to a rolling boil domestically. While market watchers had expected inflation to significantly cool, prices have largely continued to rise. In turn, the Federal Reserve has maintained relatively high interest rates, despite predictions of six or seven cuts headed into the year.

None of that sounds like it should bode very well for stocks, but the S&P 500, a measure of the broad U.S. stock market, has returned about 16% so far in 2024.

"Even the biggest optimist wouldn't have thought we'd have the best start to an election year since 1976. This has been even the bull's dream of a year," says Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at the Carson Group. "The good news is that we do think there's still some juice left."

Here's why market watchers believe the current bull market isn't done running — and what it means for your portfolio.

For much of the year, and indeed, for much of the current bull run that began in October 2022, the story on broad stock market indexes has been the same: Yes, stocks are going up, but the big names are doing all the heavy lifting.

Indeed, the likes of Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon.com and Alphabet have all enjoyed returns over the past year that have vastly outgained the broad market.

"You've had this continued massive disparity between a few very large, primarily tech and AI-focused companies doing extraordinarily well, and the rest of the market just sort of muddling along," says Christopher R. Jackson, senior vice president of UBS Wealth Management. "And that presents some risks and opportunities."

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The potential downside, he says, is that investors have gotten out over their skis on some of the big names. "The big risk for equities, especially in the U.S., is valuation," he says.

Given that the S&P 500 trades at a meaningful premium to its history, it wouldn't be surprising for investor enthusiasm to dim a bit, he says. That could lead to a pullback or muted gains in the second half of 2024.

On the flip side, strong leadership from tech could present an opportunity for other parts of the market to catch up, leading to broader gains over the next few months, Jackson says.

On some level, that's already happening. All 11 S&P 500 sectors sport positive returns year-to-date, with six featuring double-digit returns. Indexes tracking small- and midsize-company stocks are up as well.

"Yes, you've got the huge winners in tech and communication services — on a relative basis, those are doing amazing," says Detrick. "But to say that everything else is down is just not true."

Investors have reason to believe that things can improve across the board in the coming months, Detrick says. "If inflation keeps improving, the story in the second half is going to be a couple of rate cuts," he says.

That could "loosen up the gears" in what has been a stubborn housing market and should encourage business investment — both good signs for the broader market, he says.

Financial pros caution against making any wholesale changes to your portfolio based on short-term market prognostications. Nevertheless, Detrick and others are adjusting client portfolios on the margins.

"We are planning for a baton pass," he says. "We're looking at some of the areas that have been underperforming, but, with an improving economy, can outperform in the second half of the year."

That means tilting the portfolio toward the financial and industrial sectors and upping holdings in small- and midsize-company stocks.

Jackson says that investing in an equal-weighted version of the S&P 500 (as opposed to the standard version, which holds more shares of bigger companies) is a great way to get diversified exposure to a market he expects to move broadly, if modestly, upward.

Given that tech and communication services currently account for 40% of the S&P 500, "beginning to take some profits and broadening out that exposure makes a lot of sense," he says.

One thing to avoid in the coming months: making any big moves in your portfolio based on how the election appears to be going.

"Do not let politics mix with your investments," says Detrick. "A lot of people didn't like President Obama. A lot of people didn't like President Trump. A lot of people don't like President Biden. The stock market did just fine under all three of them."

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