Patterns in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index's price graph show the U.S. equity measure may slump 21 percent, said Bank of America Corp. (BAC)'s Mary Ann Bartels.
The benchmark measure of U.S. equities closed at 1,154.23 last week. Bartels, a New York-based technical analyst at Bank of America, said the index is at risk of falling to between 1,020 and 1,100, known to traders as Fibonacci levels that represent 50 percent and 38.2 percent retracements of the bull market since March 2009. Further losses that push the S&P 500 down to between 910 and 985 are a possibility, she said.
"Unfortunately, nothing in our work suggests that the market is improving," Bartels wrote in a report today. "More importantly, we are more concerned now that the downside risk could be more than we originally forecast."
Bartels, who ranked third among analysts who study price charts in Institutional Investor's 2010 survey, said last month that her year-end projection of 1,400 on the S&P 500 depended on the Federal Reserve announcing measures to stimulate the economy. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke refrained from doing so at a speech on Aug. 26 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Bartels said on Aug. 2 that the S&P 500 needed to stay above 1,250 to maintain its bull market or risk extending its decline from this year's peak to about 17 percent. The gauge's slump in August, its biggest in 15 months, helped extend the slide from April 29's high to 16 percent.
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