A battle between the bulls vs the bears is brewing on Wall Street, and the argument is not about where the stock market is headed in the next year or two but for the rest of the decade and beyond. Depending on who’s right, investors could be in for another lost decade — like the one from 2000 through 2009, when the S&P 500 index ended not far from where it began. Or investors could enjoy 10 years’ worth of decent gains, if not the to-the-moon returns we’ve seen lately.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs kicked off the debate in late October when they released their latest 10-year forecast, which calls for total returns of 3% annualized for the S&P 500 over the next 10 years. The firm believes that’s the most likely return scenario, within a range of –1% and 7%. For context, the broad-market benchmark returned 13% over the past 10 years.
