help stocks keep up their performance."
According to the survey, corporate profits will improve 10% over the course of year, with earnings per share in the S&P 500 averaging just above $92 per share in 2011.
But that outlook might be too sunny, cautions Wells Fargo Advisors' chief macro strategist Gary Thayer. He projects corporate earnings will only increase 6%.
"A lot of the company balance sheets up to this point have benefited from significant cost cutting, not sustained revenue growth," Thayer said. "And we don't expect to see strong revenue growth in 2011 either."
He added that government moves like the $858 billion tax cut compromise and the Federal Reserve's $600 billion injection will prop up the markets in the first half of the year but will lose steam during the latter half.
"If the Fed winds down its program in the middle of the year, as it has suggested, we think the second half of the year could be more volatile and challenging for the stock market," Thayer said.
His year-end target for the S&P 500 is tied for the worst at 1,300 -- that's up only 3% from where the index ended 2010.
But other experts are more optimistic, including Goldman Sachs' David Kostin, whose forecast for a 13% rise in the S&P 500 in 2010 was exactly where the index closed out the year.
For 2011, he is predicting another 15% jump to 1,450 by the end of the year, arguing that company balance sheets have never been stronger, with more than $1 trillion in cash, and the path to earnings growth has rarely been smoother. http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/04/markets/investment_outlook_survey_stocks/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin
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