No New Normal as Strategists Predict 11% S&P 500 Gain

Rising profits and cash balances will push the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to the biggest three-year advance since the 1990s, surpassing forecasts for below-average returns, strategists at Wall Street’s biggest banks say.

The benchmark gauge for American equities will rise 11 percent from last week’s close to 1,379 in 2011, bringing the increase since 2008 to 53 percent, the best return since 1997 to 2000, according to the average of 11 strategists in a Bloomberg News survey. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Kostin, the most accurate U.S. strategist this year, said sales growth will spur a 17 percent rally in the S&P 500 through the end of 2011.