Every January, investment firms, economists and commentators offer their fearless forecasts about the year to come. Large financial firms often offer “safe” predictions: middle-of-the-road projections that are encouraging enough to motivate clients to continue investing, but not so extreme as to invite derision if their forecast misses the mark. Mainstream 2016 forecasts are for the U.S. equity market to rise between 5% and 8%, forecasts that may seem too optimistic after last week’s decline of nearly 6% in the S&P 500 Index, the worst start to a year in the history of the index.