S&P 500 Rout Leaves Street Unbowed as Tide Ebbs on Calls

By virtue of doing nothing, Wall Street’s stock strategists are becoming bigger bulls. They’re leaving year-end forecasts unchanged even as stocks plummet.

The month’s 5.6 percent decline has widened the distance between the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the average prediction of 19 strategists to 10 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Equities haven’t seen a year-end rally like that since 1999, when the S&P 500 surged 18 percent from mid-October.