The broad Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, even after Friday's 2% rally sparked by a strong November jobs reports, has basically gone nowhere this year. It's up 1.6% so far in 2016, after an 11% gain last year and a 30% return in 2013.
Kostin predicts the S&P 500 will end 2016 at 2100 -- virtually flat with the S&P's 2092 close on Friday.
But bulls on the panel delivered a far more upbeat message.
Jeff Moser, manager of the Wells Fargo Large Cap Core Fund, said he is "a little more optimistic on 2016" than Goldman's Kostin.
Moser said stocks could climb as much as 10% next year. "Something above the long-term average, so we may get to double-digit returns," he says.
Where do Moser and Kostin differ on their math? Moser thinks there's a "good opportunity" for corporate profits to be a little bit better in 2016, after flattish growth this year. "We like the U.S. market," Moser said.
Moser argues that the U.S. consumer, helped by a better job market, "some wage growth" and more cash on hand from lower bills at the gas pump, will provide a lift to corporate earnings. He also believes the stock market will benefit from less uncertainty about the Fed's interest rate plans once the U.S. central bank pulls the trigger on its first rate hike in nearly a decade. "As we go from uncertainty to certainty," he said, the U.S. stock market will get a "little bit more of a push (higher) in 2016."
Another bull says many of the headwinds of 2015, namely plunging oil prices and a much stronger dollar, will ease in 2016.
"We think the bull market will continue," said
