Wall Street is feeling optimistic about 2012 based on promising housing and construction data and positive headlines out of Europe, reports USA TODAY.
The market rallied nearly 3% on Tuesday; the biggest gain since November 30th, but is still down 1.3% from the year's opening.
"A quick survey of New Year's prognostications from investment strategists suggests stocks might deliver the double-digit gains that they have put up, on average, over the long term," reports USA TODAY. "A snapshot of 2012 year-end-price targets from five firms shows an average gain of 10.5% for stocks."
Historically, stocks tend to get stronger after "steep corrections" says Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P. He makes an example of the eight U.S. economic declines 15% to 25% since 1845 -- the market was up an average of 31.7% in the year after the drops.
Skepticism
This year was met with an incredible amount of volatility thanks to slow economic growth and political squabbles at home and abroad. But a quick look into 2012 shows we'll probably be in for much more of it.
2012 brings us closer to the potential breakup of the euro zone, China's potentially hard landing, and what promises to be a divisive presidential election. And let's not forget that Congress is scheduled to readdress the U.S. debt ceiling at the end of 2012. Some speculate continued failure on Congress's behalf will be met with another U.S. downgrade.
Still, USA TODAY says analysts are suggesting that despite a continuance of "excess volatility and doubt," the U.S. is better equipped to come out on top. "The relative stability of U.S. fundamentals and economic conditions will be an attractive alternative compared to other more volatile assets around the world," said Wall Street strategist Brian Belski.
Investing ideas
Looking for investing ideas going into 2012?
For ideas, we started with a list of the 200 largest S&P 500 stocks. To refine the list, we only focused on S&P 500 stocks that have reported greater profitability ratios relative to their competitors over the last 12 months.
And finally, we only focused on companies that are undervalued relative to levered free cash flow.
These highly profitable companies are trading at attractive levels. Should they be on your watchlist for 2012?
List sorted by market cap. (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)
1. Time Warner
2. Marathon Oil
3. Aetna
Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.
List compiled by Eben Esterhuizen, CFA. Kapitall's Eben Esterhuizen and Rebecca Lipman do not own any of the shares mentioned above. Profitability data sourced from Fidelity. FCF data from Yahoo! Finance