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Why even billionaires couldn't predict the stock market in 2025
2026-01-02 12:42:02 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE
Forbes asked 34 billionaires in early 2025 how they thought the S&P 500 index would perform. It turns out that even billionaires can't predict the future.
Even market experts can't predict the future. In early 2025, we surveyed 34 billionaires, asking them how they each thought the S&P 500 would fare over the course of the year. More than half of them were way off.
The S&P ended the year up 16%. That's an above-average return for the index, which has returned about 10% per year over the past seven decades, though lower than the 23% and 24% returns in 2024 and 2023, respectively.
Billionaires, however, were less optimistic. Nearly half thought the market would be flat or down in 2025. Another 35% — the largest group of all — thought the market would be up, but only by single digits. Only 7 billionaires out of 34 respondents, or 21%, correctly predicted that the S&P would end the year up between 10% and 20%.
“I’m very optimistic about artificial intelligence in general — and that’s why I thought its benefits would come much earlier than anticipated,” says investor Samir Mane, Albania’s first billionaire, who accurately predicted the S&P’s return range this year.
Large-cap growth stocks like Alphabet and Nvidia, in addition to other artificial intelligence benefactors like Broadcom and Palantir, have fueled the bull market boom.
AI-related stocks have been responsible for about 75% of the S&P 500's total returns, according to JP Morgan. Mane says he expects 2026 to be another successful year for the index, thanks again to AI companies.
Others who, like Mane, predicted correctly include real estate mogul Larry Connor, medical device magnate Joe Kiani, and Florida investor and soon-to-be Pittsburgh Penguins owner David Hoffmann.
On the other hand, 35% of billionaires incorrectly predicted the market would fall to some extent, including 9% who predicted it would fall more than 20%. Florida homebuilder Pat Neal was among the skeptics.
“I’m surprised to see [the S&P 500] doing well, I predicted it wouldn’t happen,” says the 76-year-old, who predicted the market would fall 10% to 20%.
“I thought S&P would follow the economy more closely, and since I’m in the construction business and interest rates are high, I didn’t have an optimistic forecast for the economy as a whole or [the index]... And then, if you ask me about 2026, I’m not so optimistic, but I was wrong about 2025 too.”
Other fortune tellers who called for a negative return in 2025 include French logistics billionaire Eric Hémar, Canadian financial services billionaire Stephen Smith, and Canadian real estate billionaire Bill Malhotra.
So billionaires aren't necessarily better forecasters than investors or the general public—or even professionals. As of early December 2024, Bank of America was predicting a 10% return in 2025, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were predicting about 7.5%. A survey by Vanguard found that the public thought the market would return 6.4% in 2025.
The billionaires were much better at their individual stock-picking skills. Forbes also asked each person to name one stock they would recommend someone else buy or own.
Three, including Neal, chose Nvidia (up 39% in 2025). Other picks included Howard Hughes Corporation (up 4%), XP (up 38%), Palantir (135%) and Robinhood (up 200%). Of the 18 specific stock picks offered by billionaires, only two lost value in 2025: Indonesian beverage company Tanobel (down 37%) and the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (down 6%).
The planet's billionaires are heading into 2026 richer than ever - and primed for another great year, at least according to Mane, who accurately predicted the market's 2025 comeback.
On the other hand, he says that even a billionaire's advice should be taken with a grain of salt: "If we could predict the stock market perfectly, we wouldn't be billionaires. We'd be trillionaires." /Forbes
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