Goldman Sachs warns investors to expect lower returns over the next year

Get your expectations in check, bulled-up investors: One of Goldman Sachs' top stock strategists sees more gradual stock gains over the next 12 months.

"We should acknowledge that the S&P 500 and indeed other equity markets around the world have had a phenomenal return over the course of the last year and year to date," Goldman Sachs chief global equity strategist Peter Oppenheimer told Yahoo Finance in an exclusive interview on Opening Bid (video above). "So we've already had a lot of good returns behind us. We would expect lower returns from here."

Oppenheimer has a loyal following on the Street for many prescient calls on stocks over the years. In early March, he took a cautious view of markets before stocks hit their lows for the year later that month.

"In most cases, we're talking about mid- to high-single-digit [percentage] returns over the next 12 months, lower than we've been seeing in every region in the last 12 months," Oppenheimer added. "But still, you know, relatively decent so long as economic growth continues. That's our expectation."

To be sure, the factors are in place for a more muted backdrop for stocks heading into the end of the year, after a 12% gain for the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) so far in 2026.

For one, a worldwide government bond sell-off has intensified with a ferocity that should alarm every investor, big and small. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note ( ^TNX ) — the single most important interest rate in the world, and the rate that sets the price of everything from a mortgage to a car loan to a credit card — recently touched its highest level since 2023.

The 30-year yield ( ^TYX ) is near a two-decade high, which does nothing to help those planning for their long-term financial security.

And here is what makes this moment especially concerning: Bond yield creep is happening globally.

Japan's 10-year bond yield just climbed above 3% for the first time since 1996. British 10-year yields just hit their highest level since mid-2007. German 10-year bonds are at levels last seen in 2011 during the peak of the European debt crisis.

"The stock market has been able to ignore these moves so far this year. However, as we have seen in the past, higher yields don't matter for stocks … until they do," Miller Tabak strategist Matt Maley wrote in a note.

When the bond markets in the US, Japan, the UK, and Germany are all selling off at the same time, that is not a coincidence — that is a signal.

The signal is that investors worldwide are losing confidence in governments' ability to manage their debt, control inflation, and keep their fiscal houses in good order.