Earnings Estimates

BeSpoke Investment Group published this table about year end S&P 500 numbers last week.  What I find interest {and perhaps a bit disconcerning} is the group's year end average.  You'll note that it is pretty close to our own 1375 year end forecast.  Below is BeSpoke's take.

"Each week, Bloomberg surveys the head equity strategists at the major Wall Street firms for their year-end S&P 500 price targets. At the start of 2011, the average S&P 500 year-end price target for these strategists was 1,371. This would have resulted in a 2011 gain of 9.02% for the market.

Since the start of the year, five strategists have increased their year-end targets. Goldman Sachs hiked its target from 1,450 to 1,500, Barclays went from 1,420 to 1,450, Bank of Montreal and HSBC both increased their targets to 1,430, and UBS upped its target 100 points to 1,425. These five increases put the current average year-end price target at 1,401, which would result in a 2011 gain of 11.40%. With a YTD gain of more than 5% already, the S&P 500 is nearly halfway there.