Pursuits
Stocks Beat Strategists Seeing Best Over Following Rally
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The 13 percent rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has lifted the gauge to its highest level ever compared with strategists’ forecasts, a sign the best may be over for U.S. equities in 2012.
Shares have climbed 2.1 percent above the average projection of 1,389 from 13 firms from Morgan Stanley to JPMorgan Chase & Co. tracked by Bloomberg. That’s the biggest premium on record for this time of year, according to data going back to 1999. Estimates by strategists in August have come true the last three years, with the S&P 500 rising 11 percent on average through December, the data show.