Strategists Still Bullish On Year End Targets

Despite the volatility in the markets, most market strategists are still bullish. In fact a number of them have upped their forecasts for year end targets. My view is still the same, we will end the year near the highs, but I still see the best time to re-enter is after the World Cup season. Call it topical or market timing, I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to be holding stocks in May and June.

Bespoke: Bloomberg surveys sell-side Wall Street strategists on a weekly basis for their year-end S&P 500 price targets. At the start of 2010, the average year-end S&P 500 price target was 1,225, which would have been a gain of just about 10%. As markets moved higher in the first quarter, strategists upped their year-end targets, and the current average target stands at 1,268. (In the table below, green shaded price targets are ones that have been increased so far this year. No strategists have lowered their targets since the start of the year.) A target of 1,268 translates into a gain of 13.68% for the year and 16.48% from current S&P 500 levels.

There are no strategists with year-end targets that are lower than the index's current levels. Deutsche Bank currently has the most bullish year-end price target at 1,375, followed by UBS at 1,350, and JP Morgan, Oppenheimer, HSBC, and Bank of America. Citigroup is the least bullish at 1,175, which would still be a gain of 7.97% from here.