Kansas business professionals predict the S&P 500 Index Kansas business professionals predict the S&P 500 Index

The first challenge to Kansas' businesses to predict next year's S&P 500 index has closed for submissions. The Center for Economic Development and Business Research (CEDBR), part of the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University, collected these predictions from business professionals across Kansas following the Kansas Economic Outlook Conference on Oct. 5.

The winner will be announced at next year's conference and will receive a complimentary registration to that event. Overall results of all the predictions are shown below and at www.KansasEconomy.org/local-forecasts/sp500-forecast.

The contestants in CEDBR's S&P 500 Prediction Challenge each gave a prediction for the value of the S&P 500 stock market index on Aug. 31, 2018. As of Nov. 5, the closing date for entries into the challenge, the S&P 500 index was valued at 2,587. The median prediction among the contestants for the S&P 500 Index is 2,663.58 points. On average, contestants predicted that the S&P 500 will increase by 3 percent during the next 10 months, after the index increased by 14.6 percent this year-to-date.

About 60 percent of the contestants predicted that the stock market would increase in 2018 over its November 2017 value. Many of the predictions were more bullish than major analysts forecast for 2018. Recently, analysts at Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup forecast the S&P 500 to reach 2,500 points, 2,600 points and 2,675 points, respectively, in 2018. The Federal Reserve Board has forecast continued economic growth in 2018, with modest inflationary expectations and a half-point increase in the Federal Funds rate projected.