Keep buying stocks, although consider diversifying beyond the high-flying U.S. stock market.

That’s because the American central bank, with no signs of dangerous inflation or another bubble in sight, will continue to support the market for years. And that will mean strong equity gains and lousy bond yields.

Those were some of the predictions and advice that came out of Northern Trust’s 2014 Investment Outlook and Beyond session today.

With the S&P already ahead some 25 percent, Northern Trust officials said U.S. equities in 2014 will continue to be a great buy.

Why?

Although the Fed will reduce its bonding buying program early next year, low rates will continue for several more years, Northern Trust officials predicted.

“We do see a taper in March of next year. But we believe the market has come to terms with that,” said Katie Nixon, chief investment officer in the bank’s wealth management group.

But new Federal Reserve Board Chairman Janet Yellen has been clear, as were predecessors, about what polices will be pursued. “They don’t jump around like politicians. They have been clear,” she said of the central bankers running American monetary policy.

“So rates will stay low,” Nixon added, “at between zero and 25 basis points for the foreseeable future. And that is a very important point for investors to realize.”

How long is the foreseeable future?

Northern Trust officials, stressing that inflation is almost non-existent, expect the easy money policies to go on into 2016.

And that means, according to Northern Trust projections, U.S. equities will gain on average 7.8 percent a year over the next five years. Asked what would be her best trade, Nixon said “overweighting” stocks. But she added that Northern Trust clients -- whose best clients have $35 million and up in assets -- are being advised to diversify beyond U.S. equities.

“We are taking a much more global perspective,” Nixon added. The bank is also trying to redefine what global investing is. Northern Trust is now more interested in where a company generates the bulk of its income than where it is located, according to Nixon.

Besides U.S. markets, others promising stock markets over the next five years, Northern Trust officials said in their briefing, include European stocks. They are projected to gain 7.8 percent a year, emerging markets, a sector that is projected to gain 10.1 percent a year in the same period and the United Kingdom, which will earn some 8.4 percent a year.

But Nixon warned investors that continued cheap money means a so-so environment for bonds. Northern Trust predicts bonds will gain 2.8 percent over the next five years. Some investors could be tripped up, she noted. The problem, she adds, is that because bond yields are so low, some investors are now moving into dicey fixed income products such as leveraged loans.

“You are trading one kind of risk for another. You have to be very careful,” she warned.

Another projected Northern Trust laggard over the next five years is one of the priciest investments: hedge funds. They are projected to gain only some 4.4 percent a year. One reason for the anticipated poor average performance of hedge funds as a group is the extreme variance in performance among managers, she said.

Nixon, who conceded that Northern Trust uses some hedge funds, said it is critical that anyone using this sector must have the sophisticated investment tools “to really tease out where a manager is getting investment returns.”

Northern Trust is a private bank with some $846 in assets under management, $5.2 trillion in assets under custody and $96 billion in banking assets.