Where does the market go from here?

As a man who has spent more than four decades following the ups and downs of the stock market, Hugh Johnson does not have a lot of confidence in anyone's ability to forecast what lies ahead for investors.

Johnson, chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Albany, NY-based Johnson Illington Advisors, is expecting the S&P 500 to rise by five percent by the fourth quarter. The index , which is about 770 and widely followed by money managers, will rise to 800 by the first quarter 2010 based on a "statistically consistent" analysis of trends like corporate earnings, he said.

But Johnson encourages people to take his prediction with a grain of salt.

"I don't know where the market is going," he said. "Have I seen anything that resembles this? Well, the answer is no . . . . Personally, I would pay you nothing for this forecast."