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It’s that time of year when the pundits are speculating on where the FTSE 100 might go next year. They’re all out with their guesswork machinery going into overdrive.
Year-end predictions should, of course, be taken with a great deal of scepticism. But who can ignore the temptation to see what they say?
To recap 2024, the FTSE 100 is up around 6.5% so far with a month to go. It’s still down from its 52-week peak of 8,474 points set in May, but it seems to be holding above 8,000 points.
It’s sobering to think the index looked like breaking through 8,000 any day now… back in late 2019.
Eyes forward
That 6.5% year-to-date gain is close to the average annual FTSE 100 returns of the past 20 years of 6.9%. Oh, but that’s total returns. So if we add 4% for dividends, which is about where the index yield would have been at the start of the year, we could have a very nice…
