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Canadian equity strategists may have spent New Year’s Eve eating crow, as not even the most bearish outlook foresaw what turned out to be the worst year for stocks since 2008.

That hasn’t stopped them from predicting double-digit gains for 2019.

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The S&P/TSX Composite Index will end 2019 at 16,644, 16 per cent above its 2018 closing level, according to the average of eight estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the biggest increase since 2016, when stocks gained 18 per cent.

“Our expectation is that 2019 is going to be a better year than 2018 based on the fact that pessimism right now is at extreme levels,” Candice Bangsund, vice president and portfolio manager at Fiera Capital Corp., said in a phone interview. “When everybody’s on the same trade, when everybody’s negative, we think this is a good opportunity to go in the other direction.”