NEW YORK — Get ready for investments to be merely good again.

They've already been great for years, as both stocks and bonds have delivered fat returns since the worst of the financial crisis passed in 2009. But after such a strong and long gallop upward, markets have many reasons to slow down, analysts and fund managers say.

So instead of getting 10 percent or more from stocks, which index funds are on pace to deliver for the sixth time in eight years, a better expectation may be for something in the low to mid-single digits, many of the predictions say.

Few are expecting losses for stocks. But for bonds, which have been stellar for decades, even a flat year could be considered a victory.

Of course, analyst forecasts have a long history of being wrong. Many market watchers were forecasting only modest gains for this year, for example. And even though big, unexpected events repeatedly shook markets, from the U.K. decision to quit the European Union to Donald Trump's presidential election victory last month, stocks still managed to turn in a better-than-expected year.

Many things could trip up forecasts for 2017.But here's a look at what market watchers are thinking:

Stocks

In recent years, stock prices have risen far more quickly than earnings, and that has many investors expecting slower gains ahead.

“We are not doubling down with our clients' money,” says Rich Weiss, senior portfolio manager at American Century Investments. “It's going to be wait-and-see for us.”

When the financial crisis was still burning in early 2009, the S&P 500 index was trading at the cheap level of eight times its earnings per share from the prior 12 months. Now, it's trading at 19 times, according to FactSet.

At such levels, companies will need to produce bigger profits to warrant further gains in stock prices, analysts say.

Strategists along Wall Street, from Deutsche Bank to Goldman Sachs, are predicting the S&P 500 will climb to 2,300 or 2,350 in 2017. That's less than 4 percent higher from where it was on Tuesday.

Bonds

Bonds have been terrific investments for decades.

But following Trump's victory, interest rates began jumping on expectations for faster economic growth and inflation, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note topped 2.60 percent this month, up from 1.86 percent on election day.

Rising rates mean newly issued bonds pay more in interest, but they also push down prices of bonds already in mutual funds and investors' portfolios. The largest bond mutual fund by assets had its worst month in nearly 13 years in November, losing 2.6 percent.

“Bottom line, in a rising-rate environment, things will be very choppy,” says Bernie Williams, chief investment officer for USAA's Wealth Management Investment Solutions. “But I don't think we will have severe inflation, which is the reason to bail on bonds.”

Analysts are predicting a further, and mostly gradual, rise for rates in 2017. That has them forecasting slight losses to modest gains for the types of bond funds traditionally at the core of a portfolio.