David Kostin, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chief US equity strategist, will retire at the end of 2025 after more than 30 years with the investment bank, according to Bloomberg. Kostin joined Goldman in 1994 and moved to the portfolio strategy team in 2004.

He will be succeeded by Ben Snider, who has been with Goldman since 2010 and became a managing director in 2017.

Kostin, who will assume the role of advisory director, has been regarded as one of Wall Street’s most influential strategists. His forecasts have included an end-2024 S&P 500 target of 6,000 and a warning that US equities were unlikely to sustain above-average performance seen in the previous decade. He also created the Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund VIP index, which tracks the top long positions of fundamentally-driven hedge funds and underpins an eponymous Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF).

In an interview, Kostin described the fast-paced culture at Goldman and the challenges of forecasting in volatile markets, citing policy swings in 2025 under President Donald Trump, including historic tariffs that disrupted models for economic growth and inflation. “It’s been a story in a few chapters this year alone,” he said, noting that his S&P 500 target for 2025 had been adjusted four times.

Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist, praised Kostin for bringing “a client-first approach to equity market analysis, developing rigorous frameworks and delivering differentiated products and insights.” Kostin said he had been working with Snider on a transition, emphasising the need to add value in increasingly efficient markets.