It’s often prudent to take investment predictions with a pinch of salt, but you might only need the lightest touch of the shaker where Mozamil Afzal’s predictions are concerned.

He had more hits than misses with his 2014 outlook, and he exhibited confidence as he outlined his projections for the coming year.

Mr Afzal is the global chief investment officer with EFG Asset Management, which is the independent investment arm of the Swiss-based global private banking group EFG Bank.

The company’s Bermuda operations expanded last month into wealth management, and was renamed EFG Wealth Management (Bermuda).

Giving his investment outlook for the coming year Mr Afzal, who is based in London, believes equities will continue to be a good place to put money, especially in a number of markets outside the US.

He also has a favourable view of corporate and high-yield bonds. But he remains cautious on energy stocks and decidedly unimpressed by the prospects for gold in the near-term.

As for US interest rates, Mr Afzal expects to see them rise to a peak of 3 per cent by 2017.

Those were the takeaway points from a presentation he gave to Hamilton Rotary Club.

Before giving his outlook for 2015, Mr Afzal looked back at his 2014 predictions, which showed he had been correct to take a positive view on China and to warn of challenges for emerging markets and commodities. His bearish outlook on gold was another hit, as was his positive tone on bonds.

However, he did hold up his hand to getting it wrong on actively managed funds, as passive index funds ended up in the top ten last year.

Having outlined his list of mostly correct calls over the previous 12 months, Mr Afzal, who regularly appears as a guest on Bloomberg TV and BBC Business, presented his outlook for the coming year.

He described the current economic environment as benign, with global growth expected to be around 2.2 per cent, which was “fine, but not spectacular”.

Emerging markets will remain “tricky”, he warned, with countries that produce commodities, such as oil and raw materials, having a tougher time than those which are predominantly consumer-driven, such as China and Indonesia.

EFG is becoming more positive on Japanese equities. Mr Afzal noted that the Bank of Japan is buying a lot of government debt and he pondered what might happen if the government of Japan later decides to cancel its debt, something he admitted would be unprecedented.

He expects the US recovery to continue and accelerate, but said Europe and Japan will lag behind for a few years as they have only started to introduce quantitative easing policies.

In terms of asset allocations, he suggested investors favour equities over bonds and look to stocks in Japan, Asia and Europe rather than going overweight in US equities.

“Stocks will do better than bonds. US government bonds will rise, we think maybe in June,” he said.

On the topic of when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, Mr Afzal said: “Does the Fed go early and slow, or does it go late and fast next year? Whichever it is, the end point will be the same.”

He predicted US interest rates will peak in 2017 at 3 per cent, and he urged the audience to anchor that figure in their minds, and in their budget plans for the coming few years.

He sees good opportunities in corporate and high-yield bonds, and while he views US equities as now being on the expensive side, he said they were still “okay” as investments. However, he added: “There are better opportunities in other parts of the world.”

Mr Afzal cautioned against plunging into energy stocks, saying it was still too early to do so, and he was also bearish on gold, expecting the price to fall below $1,000.