(Bloomberg News) Forecasters at securities firms are more conservative on U.S. stocks than any time in seven years, predicting the Standard & Poor's 500 Index will rise 7.2 percent in 2012 as budget deficits around the world limit gains.
The benchmark gauge will climb to 1,348 after it was virtually unchanged in 2011 and the U.S. beat every equity market in the developed world except Ireland, according to the average forecast of 12 strategists tracked by Bloomberg. That's the smallest predicted return since 2005. Adam Parker of Morgan Stanley, whose estimate for 2011 proved the most accurate among current analysts, said Europe's debt crisis will keep volatility above historical levels.
Bulls at Oppenheimer & Co. and Citigroup Inc. say record profits and improving U.S. economic data will propel stocks after the S&P 500 advanced 86 percent since March 2009. Parker and UBS AG'S Jonathan Golub say the prospect of a global slowdown will curb investors' appetite for equities and keep the rally from gaining momentum.
"The question we pose is, 'Do you want to be buying it now?'" Golub, the New York-based chief U.S. market strategist at UBS, said in a phone interview on Dec. 29. "A year is a long time. Will there be better entry points than right now? We think the answer is yes."
Smallest Change
Shares fell last week after an expansion in the European Central Bank's balance sheet stoked concern the region's debt crisis will worsen. The S&P 500 lost 0.6 percent to 1,257.6, erasing its 2011 gain and leaving the measure with the smallest price change for any year since 1947. Financial companies led the retreat in 2011, declining 18 percent, and utilities advanced 15 percent.
Golub says the S&P 500 will climb to 1,325 in 2012, the same forecast he gave at the beginning of last year. Credit market conditions, including yields on the 10-year Treasury note that are below 2 percent, are signaling Europe's crisis may worsen in the first half, slowing earnings growth, he said.
The S&P 500 ended 2011 about 8.3 percent below the 1,371 average strategist estimate from 12 months earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The gap compares with a 13-year average of 7.2 percent and is the biggest miss since 2008, when the index's 38 percent retreat left it 45 percent below the mean projection. Wall Street firms underestimated the measure's close by 2.7 percent in 2010 and 3.4 percent in 2009, the data show.
Pared Estimates
Forecasters pared their average 2011 prediction from 1,401 on Aug. 2 after S&P stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating, President Barack Obama and Congress struggled over deficit cuts and Europe was forced to bail out Greece. The index moved 1.3 percent a day since April, compared with 50-year average of 0.6 percent before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.