“U.S. equities won’t be terrible, but will likely be in the low-single digits. International markets—particularly Europe [he favors Italy and Spain and disfavors France and Germany]—will do much better because they’ve already had their collapse. Japan will do best in the developed world.”

Over the long haul, Yusko smells the biggest opportunity in emerging markets. Despite the fact some countries and specific facets of the emerging markets story have stumbled of late, he believes the collective group has been unfairly—and inaccurately—tainted. 

He pointed to the so-called “Fragile Five”—Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa—that investors punished over fears they would get creamed when the Federal Reserve started easing up on its economic stimulus program and interest rates rose as a result.

“These countries are up 20 percent on average so far in 2014,” Yusko said.

And even though the Chinese equity market has been desultory for the past year or so, Yusko says the country’s growth story remains intact if you know where to go. “The basket of Chinese companies we own are focused on Internet, retail, consumer-oriented and health care companies, and are up 80 percent in the past 12 months.”

The expanding middle class in the emerging markets will provide an incredible windfall to invest in consumer-oriented areas, he said.

Among emerging markets, Yusko is particularly keen on Africa because of what he says are its favorable demographics.

And among asset classes, he said investors could benefit by adding an illiquidity premium to their portfolios.

“You want to buy things that have illiquidity like farmland, real estate, businesses that have cash flows, private equity, and business development companies that make private loans and where you can make 11 percent versus 1 percent for U.S. bonds,” Yusko said.

Currencies
Another area that Patel and Yusko disagreed about pertained to currencies. Given Patel's view that the commodities supercycle is over, she maintains that currencies of commodities-based countries will depreciate against the dollar—providing another headwind to investing in those economies.