Economist and fund manager John Hussman says the S&P is likely to have an average total return of 4.8 percent over the next 10 years.

"This is certainly better than the projected returns that we have observed over much of the past decade, but then, the past decade has produced virtually no total return for equity investors at all," Hussman writes in a note to investors.

"An expected total return of 4.8 percent is also clearly better than is presently available on Treasury bills, which are priced to return a single basis point of interest annually, and is also better than the sub-2 percent yield available on 10-year Treasury debt."

Stocks may very well outperform Treasury bonds over the coming decade, but for investors who have any sensitivity to price volatility, that is likely to be a small comfort in the next few years, says Hussman.

"We estimate that the S&P 500 would have to trade at about the 800 level in order to achieve 10-year prospective returns of 10 percent annually," Hussman says. "Importantly, even a magical 'fix' out of Europe would do nothing to change that algebra."

It's important to be clear that his expectation for returns is based on market outcomes that have accompanied past observations that fall into the same classification "bucket" or "cluster" as is seen today, Hussman notes.

The Economic Times reports that JP Morgan Securities says the S&P 500 may touch 1430 by the end of next year, a level the index last touched in May, 2008, before the financial crisis plunged the U.S. economy into recession.