Bartels Sees Bull Market Ending with 2030 S&P 500 Bear Market
Mary Ann Bartels expects the bull market in stocks to end with a secular bear market beginning in 2030, after the S&P 500 climbs as much as 75% from current levels. For long-term equity investors, that would mean a stretch of flat stock prices lasting 15 to 20 years, not another quick cycle of gains.
Bartels' 2030 market call
Bartels, chief investment strategist at Sanctuary Wealth, said the S&P 500 could reach between 10,000 and 13,000 by 2030 before the market turns. She said, "We're going to end that cycle in a bubble," and added, "We go into a secular bear market for 15 to 20 years, meaning that stock prices are flat for that time period."
75% is the upside she sees from current levels by 2030, using the index's move from its March 2020 low of 2,191.86 to Monday's all-time high above 7,400 as the backdrop. Sanctuary Wealth manages $58 billion in assets, giving her call weight among investors already trying to judge whether the current stretch is nearing its end.
1990s pattern behind the warning
Bartels pointed to a decennial pattern in markets: euphoria and general optimism about the direction of the U.S. economy typically fuel a bull market over the course of a decade, then stock prices spike near the end of the cycle before a bear market follows. She said investors saw that dynamic in the 1990s, when the internet fueled a huge boom that ended with the dot-com bust in the early 2000s.
0.1% was the pace Bank of America said the S&P 500 could shed over the next decade in a client note late last year, while Goldman Sachs said it saw the U.S. market coming in last place for returns over the next 10 years. Richard Bernstein, global head of macro investing and strategies at Janus Henderson Investors, separately said he was concerned about a possible lost decade largely due to inflation.
Two decades of gains
238% is how far the S&P 500 has rallied from its low in March 2020 through Monday's all-time high above 7,400, a move that has helped extend a secular bull market that has lasted for about two decades. The historical setup Bartels cited is the friction point for investors now: the index can still climb toward 10,000 to 13,000, but her framework says that advance would arrive near the end of the cycle, not the start of a new long run.
If that call proves right, investors focused on compounding over the next 15 to 20 years would need to plan for an index that advances into 2030 and then spends the following stretch going nowhere. Bartels has already put the end point on the calendar; the unresolved part is whether the market follows the same pattern she says has repeated before.
