Roubini Says S&P 500 May Drop to 600 as Profits Fall (Jeff Kearns)

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is likely to drop to 600 or lower this year as the global recession intensifies, said Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted the financial crisis.

  The benchmark index for U.S. stocks would have to slump 12 percent from last week’s closing level to meet his forecast. Roubini is assuming that companies in the S&P 500 will report profit of $50 a share this year and investors will pay 12 times that for equities.

  “My main scenario is that it’s highly likely it goes to 600 or below,” Roubini said today in an interview at the Chicago Board Options Exchange Risk Management Conference in Dana Point, California. A level of “500 is less likely, but there is some possibility you get there.”

  The S&P 500 has dropped 25 percent to 676.53 in 2009, its worst start to a year, following a 38 percent decline in 2008 that was the steepest annual retreat since 1937. In response to the U.S. recession that began in December 2007, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark lending rate to as low as zero and President Barack Obama got congressional approval for a $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

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