Stocks end 2011 with a question mark

Despite wild swings, the SandP 500 seems set on finishing the year at just about where it started.

The surprise stumble in the economy after the Japanese earth quake and the noxious headwinds from Europe, as it tried to contain its credit crisis, were factors that made forecasting tough in the past year. As a result, many strategists were off the mark with their yearend predictions. The SandP 500 edged up 13 points Thursday to 1263, and is now 6 points, or 0.4 percent above its final 2010 close. Its high of the year was 1370 and its low was 1075. The broader SandP 500 is the index strategists use to forecast. The 30-component Dow, meanwhile, is 6 percent higher on the year, and it added 135 points Thursday to 12,287. "For all the volatility, it just seems ironic that the SandP is going to end the