Even though the stock market has continued in its upward path in early 2014, some of the market bulls are already becoming a bit nervous about the market. If this trend continues, it will eventually be a positive for stocks as bearish sentiment is still way too high. In a survey of 14 Wall Street strategists, the average target is 1955 for the S&P 500 in 2014.
That is quite a difference from last year when the analysts' average S&P 500 target was 1531 or a gain of 7.3%. The actual close at 1805 was 17.9% above the average target. Unlike 2013, no one is now looking for a lower close, while in 2013 two analysts were looking for the market to be unchanged or lower for the year. This year there are a number of targets above 2000.
It should be noted that making long-range forecasts is difficult but investors, in my opinion, should be cautious about following a big firm's recommendations. A review of the most- and least-favored stocks for 2013 revealed that the least-favored stocks did almost three times better than those most-favored stocks.
So what is an investor to do in 2014? Here are my recommendations for investing success this year.
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