BlackRock's capital market assumptions show trailing U.S. equity returns

BlackRock recently published its quarterly capital markets assumptions. Over the next five years, it expects both U.S. large- and small-cap equities, with 5.8% and 5.4% returns, respectively, to trail other regions by about 500 to 700 basis points.

U.S. large caps have the lowest expected volatility among the selected equity markets, at 17.3%, except global large caps excluding those in the U.S., which was 16.8%.

U.S. large caps have the lowest range between the expected return (5.8%) and the lower (3.7%) and upper (8%) returns. China A shares have a 12.6% expected return, but a range that goes from 2% to 24.4%.