Energy stocks are poised to take over the S&P 500 at the expense of the tech sector, according to Louis Navellier.The investment strategist expects the energy sector to represent 30% of the S&P 500 by 2025.That’s a marked increase from 2020, when energy made up just 2% of the popular investment index. Loading Something is loading.
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The S&P 500 is poised for a big shakeup over the coming years as energy stocks finally receive more attention from investors, investment strategist Louis Navellier said in a Friday note.
When oil prices dipped negative in 2020 amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, oil stocks plunged, extending a years-long downtrend that saw the energy sector fall to just 2% of the S&P 500. Today, that figure has tripled to 6% as energy stocks begin to outperform amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has sent oil prices surging.
Navellier expects the rise to continue, forecasting that the energy sector could represent 30% of the S&P 500 by 2025. That’d be a meteoric rise for the sector that has been shunned by ESG-focused investors in recent years.
Such a move would be fueled at the expense of the tech sector, which combined with communication services made up nearly half of the S&P 500 at its peak during the pandemic.
“Technology stocks remain very nervous, and a leadership change is underway,” Navellier said in reference to this week’s trainwreck of earnings results from mega-cap tech companies like Meta and Amazon.
“I predict that in early 2025, energy stocks will be 30% of the S&P 500 and technology stocks will fall to about only 32%,” Navellier said. The main driver behind Navellier’s thesis is that investment managers have to play catchup and buy energy stocks as most ditched them when the sector was just 2% of the index.
“Tracking managers will be systematically buying energy stocks and a net seller of technology stocks as the sector weights in the S&P 500 change for at least the next couple of years,” Navellier explained.
That move would catch most investors that don’t buy passive indexes off guard, as some expect a likely price decline in oil prices if a peace deal is ever reached between Russia and Ukraine, given that’s what happened in the early days of the war.
Navellier’s outlook, though extreme, is a continuation of current trends. The technology sector is down 25% year-to-date, while the energy sector is up nearly 70% over the same time period.