US Bank Offers Rosy Investment Forecast Heading Into 2015

Investors stand to benefit from a great capital-markets conundrum as 2015 approaches, officials with US Bank’s Private Client Reserve said in their 2014 Investment Outlook this morning at the World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial.

David Heidel, regional investment director, and national investment consultant Dan Heckman delivered an upbeat, 47-minute review of global and domestic factors that have paid off handsomely through 2014 for those who stayed the course with equities and–this is a part of the conundrum–even bonds. Some bond funds have retuned yields of roughly 17 percent this year, despite the conventional wisdom that bonds generally suffer during bull markets. Equities, meanwhile, after a sharp downturn and rebound in October that caused some investor skittishness, are up abut 8.5 percent for the year.

A wide range of global conditions should keep that investment dynamic intact well into 2015, Heidel and Heckman said. The comparatively high return on 10-year treasuries has contributed to an unparalleled global capital surge into the U.S., and structural issues with the economies of China, Brazil, Russia and Japan portend a favorable investment climate in America, they said. Other factors, including the lower federal costs for debt service, continued reductions in unemployment and astonishing shale-oil boom that is revolutionizing the energy sector, also support a positive outlook.

It’s not all peaches and cream, they cautioned; continuing issues with overall U.S. public debt levels, uncertainty over how the Fed’s discontinuance of Quantitative Easing will play out, and other storm clouds are likely to appear. And the investment world in general, Heidel noted, is changing rapidly, so that the future of growth is unlikely to track growth patterns of the past. But overall, they suggested that 2015 should be another favorable year for investors.