'In The Money' Poll - 2011 results

Congratulations to Andy Bell (hedgie in NY) for winning our 2011 forecasting poll. Andy had the SPX finishing the year at 1245, which was the closest guess to the actual finish of 1257.60. Andy will be receiving a gift card for his fearless forecast.

Overall, the In The Money pollsters average forecast for 2011 was for a 5.9% gain to 1332. This seemed like a relatively conservative forecast for the first half of the year but things changed markedly in 2H11.

For the 10-year Treasury yield forecast, the winner was Gary Smith (aka "The Internet"). Although Gary's prediction of 3.00% was well bullish of the closing level at 1.87%, it was the most conservative guess in the group. The average forecast for the 10-yr yield was 4.34% last year.

This year (2012) will be our 8th annual year for the poll. With nearly all of the tallies in, the average forecast for this year is for the S&P 500 to gain 8.5% (1364) on the year. That's only slightly more bullish than the Wall St. bigwigs polled by Bloomberg who are looking for SPX 1348 (+7.2%). Our gang also has the 10-year yield finishing 2012 at 2.77%.

Good luck to everyone in 2012!!