The biggest earnings-season rally since 2002 has pushed 34 percent of the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index above analysts’ price targets for the next year, raising concerns about the pace of the recovery.
The S&P 500 is within 5 percent of the combined price projections of more than 1,700 securities analysts after gaining 14 percent since Alcoa Inc. reported first-quarter results on April 7.
So far, analysts have resisted lifting price and earnings targets after the S&P 500 surged 37 percent from a 12-year low in March. The combination of falling profit predictions, rising valuations and higher costs for options that insure against losses are raising investor concerns that the rally may have come too far, too fast.
“To expect this to continue to move onward and upward from here would be unrealistic,” said Leo Grohowski, chief investment officer at Bank of New York Mellon Wealth Management, which oversees $132 billion in New York. “It would be healthy for the market to take a breather and allow some of the fundamentals to catch up.”
With more than a third of the companies in the benchmark index for U.S. stocks overvalued compared with their price targets, the S&P 500’s fair value is 970.21, compared with its 929.23 close on May 8, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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