he most accurate forecasters of stocks, bonds and precious metals have a warning for investors as they look forward to 2016: don’t trust the wisdom of crowds.

After a year when consensus estimates for U.S. equities, Treasuries and gold all proved wrong, the few strategists who got it right in 2015 are breaking away from the pack once again. If their predictions for next year are on target, investors can expect 12 more months of resilience in U.S. government bond markets, disappointing returns from the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and a fresh six-year low for gold.

The majority of forecasters began this year looking for a stronger global economy to boost stocks and drag bond prices lower. Instead, Wall Street’s contrarians came to the fore amid market turmoil in China and a delayed interest-rate increase by the U.S. Federal Reserve. While that buoyed demand for Treasuries, it sent commodities prices to a 16-year low and left global equities on pace for their first annual decline since 2011.

“Repeatedly, the market expectation hasn’t transpired,” said Yusuke Ito, a senior investor at Mizuho Asset Management in Tokyo, which oversees about $41 billion. “Stocks have already started to decline, and this downward pressure will continue in 2016. For bonds, I don’t think the Fed can hike rates many times. That will bring downward pressure on yields as well.”

Slumping Stocks

Professional forecasters of U.S. stocks began the year as bulls, with the average S&P 500 estimate tracked by Bloomberg calling for an 8.1 percent advance. The gauge is instead on course for a 1.8 percent decline, weighed down by shrinking profits and concern that an end to the Fed’s zero interest-rate policy will put a cap on valuations. Those same headwinds have helped saddle a majority of global equity markets with losses, sending the MSCI All-Country World Index to a 5.5 percent retreat. Emerging markets bore the brunt of the losses, with the benchmark gauge losing 17 percent.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Kostin has made some of the most accurate calls on the U.S. market this year, with a first-half target for the S&P 500 that came within 1 percent of its peak in May and a revised year-end forecast that’s about 1 percent below Monday’s close of 2,021.15. The New York-based strategist says gains next year will be capped at 2,100, leaving him tied as the most pessimistic forecaster for the second straight year. The average projection is 2,216.

Like this year, Kostin’s call for 2016 hinges in large part on his view that valuations have hit a ceiling. The S&P 500 trades at about 17 times projected earnings over the next 12 months, versus the average multiple of 14 over the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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