According to Birinyi Associates' most recent bottoms up analysis on the S&P 500, a consensus of analysts covering those stocks expect the market to rally over 31% within the next year. (This is calculated as if every stock were to reach its respective price target within the specified time - usually 1 year or 6 months.) Anyone who has been watching stocks over the last 6 months probably knows, not thinks... knows, that Google (GOOG) for example will not rally to 620 within the next year.
Analysts are historically bullish on their stocks. US Steel (X), for example, is trading at an estimated P/E of 2.7. With the stock down 53% year-to-date, the people trading it obviously do not agree with the analysts. Earnings season begins tomorrow. We would not be surprised to see a string of estimate revisions and downgrades as these companies come closer to reporting. With that in mind, market bottoms are sometimes associated with extreme negative sentiment.
