From a Bloomberg News dispatch:
The benchmark index for U.S. stocks will climb 14 percent from yesterday to end 2011 at 1,300, according to the average estimate of 12 strategists surveyed by Bloomberg. The last time they were this bullish in October was 2008, when the group predicted a 27 percent gain and the index lost 18 percent.
Imagine that. This group of soothsayers was off by 45 percentage points just three years ago, yet Bloomberg is still churning out stories about what they predict, and institutions are still employing them. I hope these "strategists" are right, but I don't believe them any more than I believed the "experts" who said the Red Sox were going to win the World Series this year.