uempel wrote:taggard wrote:the key to any santa claws rally--may be how spx acts this week. ideally there would be weakness in the Monday to Wednesday time frame. it does not need to be epic (that would be nice) but more grinding with a downward bias.
getting closer to Christmas anyone who wanted to sell (esp as the levels go down) would have been more likely to have done so. Pros are on hedged and on vacation until the early part of Jan. and the market is thin--a very sm.
Taggard, as to Wallstreet strategists:
GS writes that SPX trading range for 2012 is 1150 - 1250, should there be a meltdown in Europe the low would go down to 1000, their 12 month target for SPX is 1250...
the exact quote from inside the barron's story was
The mean prediction of the 10 stock-market strategists and investment managers surveyed by Barron's is that the Standard & Poor's 500 Index will end 2012 at about 1360, some 11.5% higher than Friday's close of 1220. That sounds like a big gain, but a lot of things have to go right for the market to make such impressive headway. Even the most bullish of these Street seers fears stocks could be more wobbly in the next six months than in the six months past.
Ironically, 1360 is very nearly the same S&P 500 target offered up a year ago in these pages -- for 2011. But what a difference a year makes. Last December, the strategists and investors we rounded up were looking ahead with modest but sturdy optimism. I
So it's not every one--just the usual end of the year barrons stuff.
as for projecting 1000 if there is a euro zone melt down--it all depends on what GS means--1000 seems a very relaxed reaction. the idea continues to be the powers that be will just buy the markets and cap any downside. and maybe it is that simple for the next 2-7 years. but you have to wonder if the end of this bear has something to do with the ongoing behavior changing in some form--as well as rate of change in technology.
trend now seems to be between 900-1100 some place--and often trends are over shot. Personally i would love to see a break under the last low--as happened in the 64-84 time frame but maybe the consensus is right and it will be more like the 1929-1939 time frame which would fit some sort of 1000-900 thing. aside from the math--what's notable is that everyone (even GS seemingly more realistic than the 10 guys barron's surveyed) are focused on the Euro Zone.
the rule of thumb is that when everyone focuses on one thing--something else is the issue. i have no clue what that is--or if it is in addition to the euro zone. or if that thing is good or bad. just getting a little edgy about the narrow focus on that one issue. it's not that it's not important--it's just that other stuff is sort of getting shoved off the screens.
have a good sunday