Stock Price Targets

We've stated that we think it is possible for the market as represented by the S&P 500 to trade up to a level between 1250-1350 by year's end.  Concurrent with that thinking,  we saw this piece from Bespoke Investment Group yesterday. 

Bespoke keeps track of many different sorts of market statistics.  One of these is keeping track of price targets of investment firm's market strategists.  According to Bespoke " At the start of the year, the average year-end price target for Wall Street strategists was 1,225. The year is only about 6 weeks old, but the average price target has now been upped to 1,232. The two firms that have already raised their year-end price targets are HSBC (1,225 to 1,300) and Bank of Montreal (1,175 to 1,200). The rest of them have kept their price targets the same. 1,232 is a gain of 16.07% from the S&P 500's current level. 

Note:  This piece was published on Feb 9, 2010.  The market is higher by 3% since then.  Also note that in the main strategists have been raising estimates for 2010.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.

Link:  Strategist Price Targets For 2010