Outlook for Stock Market in 2012 - Part 1

With 2011 drawing near the end, it is time to start building a case for stock market in 2012, especially now that I went neutral in my view on markets in the intermediate term. In the next two months I will be putting a scenario together, which will help me to prognosticate what 2012 will look like. Today I would like to begin this task by sharing a few trivial facts.

Fact # 1
I am not a baseball fan, I am a hockey fan. But I paid very close attention to game 7 of World Series. Cardinals won (for the 11th time). On Monday morning the following phrase is going to be on the lips of every bull on stock market: "when Cardinals won World Series, Dow went up on the average of 13% in subsequent year". The only negative year came in 1932.

Fact # 2
2012 is a 4th year of Presidential election cycle, which has historically been very favorable for stock market. Since WWII, S&P 500 went up on the average of 14% during US Presidents' 4th year in the office, with very notable exceptions in 2000 and 2008.

I decided to mention these very interesting and entertaining facts, while gathering more important data for my 2012 prediction. My second part will concentrate on fundamentals. Stay tuned...