S&P 500 to Fall as Bank Bailout Stalls, Barclays Says

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The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will fall, wiping out its 9.8 percent gain since November, as President Barack Obama’s so-called bad bank plan takes months to carry out and the recession worsens, Barclays Plc said.

“We suggest putting down the champagne glass and drinking a cup of coffee,” Barry Knapp, chief U.S. equity strategist at Barclays said in a report dated Jan. 30. “The policy euphoria associated with the ‘bad bank’ plan will prove to be short lived.”

The S&P 500 jumped 3.4 percent on Jan. 28, last week’s biggest daily gain, when government officials said the White House is moving closer to a plan to buy toxic assets from banks. The complexities of the program mean it will take months to implement, said Knapp, who reiterated his forecast that the U.S. stock benchmark will drop to 750 in the first quarter, the lowest level in 11 years.

Economic data that is still “unequivocally negative” will also prevent a rally in the stock market anytime soon, the strategist wrote. The S&P 500 dropped less than 0.1 percent to 825.44 today after the Commerce Department reported U.S. consumer spending fell in December for a record sixth consecutive month.

Barclays joins Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in predicting the S&P 500 will retreat back to the Nov. 20 low of 752.44 as approval of legislation to support the economy and financial system takes longer than investors anticipate.

‘Critical Milestones’

“Passage of a stimulus plan and resolution regarding the remaining TARP capital are critical milestones that must be passed for the S&P 500 to trade higher,” Goldman’s David Kostin wrote in a note last week.

David Bianco at UBS AG disagrees. Investors will gain confidence after the government releases more details on its program to buy bank assets and push the S&P 500 to 1,000, a level last reached on Nov. 4, the equity strategist said in a research report.

Bianco’s end-of-year estimate for the S&P 500 to reach 1,300 is the most bullish of the 10 Wall Street strategists surveyed by Bloomberg. The UBS forecast implies a 57 percent surge from the S&P 500’s Jan. 30 close.

Barclays is the most pessimistic with a projection of 874, a 5.8 percent advance. Goldman Sachs’s estimate for the U.S. stock benchmark is 1,100, a 33 percent gain. All three strategists are based in New York.