(Bloomberg) -- Money managers are having a change of heart.
That's according to a Strategas Research Partners survey of roughly 500 institutional investors, 70 percent of whom now expect the S&P 500 Index to stay above its low of 2,581 reached on Feb. 8. That's a turnaround from four months ago, when the majority said the worst had yet to come.
The S&P 500 came within 1 point of the February low in April and has since gained about 5 percent. Yet, sentiment is far from exuberant. Money managers in the latest Strategas survey predicted the index would end the year at 2,842, a level that's still short of its January peak of 2,873.
“Sentiment is less bullish, but we would stop short of calling investors bearish,” strategists led by Chris Verrone wrote in a note to clients.
Among other findings from the poll, Europe and health-care stocks are the least favored. Slightly more than half of the respondents expect two more Fed rate hikes this year and the consensus on 10-year Treasuries is that yields would hover near 3 percent in December.
Almost 60 percent of Strategas clients believe the Republicans will maintain control of the House in November, an upward revision from prior surveys earlier this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at lwang8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Courtney Dentch at cdentch1@bloomberg.net, Chris Nagi, Jeremy Herron
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