Doug Kass

Put Up or Shut Up
8/20/2007 12:56 p.m. EDT

OK, it's time to take a poll of the contributors on RealMoney: Will the S&P be higher at quarter-end and at year-end from the current level?

Robert Marcin

Fearless Forecast
8/20/2007 1:19 p.m. EDT

Down through September and then up by December.

Justin Ferayorni

S&P
8/20/2007 1:49 p.m. EDT

There is no doubt that economic dislocation has begun, but the extent of it is still unknown in my opinion. I hear both the bear and the bull sides of the argument at this stage in the game.

My gun-to-head prediction: S&P 500 down from here by year-end. If the U.S. subprime contagion continues to impact the economy, I would suspect the multinationals will weather better than most, but everyone is going to feel the pain. I think we'll all be surprised where oil and commodities are trading if this scenario plays out as well.

Jordan Kahn

Doug's Poll
8/20/2007 1:55 p.m. EDT

While I do not expect the market volatility to subside anytime soon, I also believe that a lot of the downside risk has been priced in at current levels.

Also, the extreme readings in most of the sentiment indicators that I follow lend themselves to the notion that we are somewhere close to a near-term bottom.

So I will go out on a limb and predict that although we may dip again in the short term, I think the SPX will be higher both at quarter-end as well as year-end from today's level (let's call it 1435).

Michael Comeau

Taking the Kass Challenge
8/20/2007 2:08 p.m. EDT

Okay, I'll bite. I think stocks are likely to be down from here at the end of Q3 and flat from here at year-end. However, volatility is here to stay, and a lot of individual stocks will do very well. I'll select growth over value as well.