Professional investors aren’t the only ones growing more optimistic. Equity analysts have been boosting their price projections for companies in the S&P 500 so high that if they all reached their estimates, the index would be at 1,618.90, Bloomberg data show. The record is 1,565.15.

Fifteen Wall Street strategists tracked by Bloomberg on average say the index will gain 7.6 percent to 1,534 this year, while Laszlo Birinyi, president of Birinyi Associates Inc., says there’s a greater than 50 percent chance it surpasses the record in 2013.

‘More Acceptance’

“We’re still bullish,” Birinyi, who was among the first to advise buying stocks when the bull market began, said in a Dec. 20 phone interview. “What keeps things going forward is more acceptance when we start to see the individual come back somewhat, when we see people redoing their asset allocations.”

Hedge fund leverage has tended to rise and fall with the S&P 500. When the benchmark gauge for U.S. equities declined 19 percent in the five months through October 2011, managers cut leverage to less than 140 percent.

They boosted it as the S&P 500 gained 29 percent from that point through April, Morgan Stanley data show.

While growth has slowed, 2012 would still mark the third straight year of earnings expansion and 2013’s projected $110.40 a share would be a record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Of the 27 companies in the benchmark gauge that reported through last week, 22 have exceeded analyst projections.

Earnings Season

Earnings for all U.S. companies with a market value of more than $1 billion probably advanced to about $1.13 trillion in 2013, according to data and analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with $784 billion in 2007.

Alcoa, the biggest U.S. aluminum producer, beat sales estimates after reporting a higher-than-projected average price for the commodity. Mosaic’s fiscal second-quarter profit topped forecasts after North American potash volumes exceeded its own prediction. The largest U.S. fertilizer producer has advanced 5.2 percent since reporting Jan. 4.