Futurists must be off their game. Were entering 2020, and nice round numbers are supposed to invite dazzling, spooky predictions for the decade ahead.

But lately all I see are Wall Street forecasts about stuff like interest rates and demographics. Apparently, if you like low stock returns and crowded cities, youll love the 2020s. There is a risk of something called monetary impotence, and not even Pfizer has a cure for it.

But wait: What about airborne robo-taxis and disease-curing nanobots? Im worried that the current prognosticatory lull means our best futurists have reached peak holy mackerel.

Take Ray Kurzweil, author of the 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, which predicts that humans and machines will merge by 2045. He has been right about many things related to computing power and connectivity, and early, perhaps, on some other things. Wearable computers should rule by now, for example, but unless that means cramming 6-inch smartphones into 5-inch pockets, were not there.

In 2016, Kurzweil told PBS NewsHour, Were going to get to a point, 10, 15 years from now, where were adding more time than is going by to our remaining life expectancy. He was talking about immortality. Im skeptical, because I recently threw my back out sneezing, which doesnt feel like something an immortal would do. But the point is, I dont know how you top a forecast like that.

Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk seems to be trying. In 2018, he said there is a 70% chance hell move to Mars. Back in 2016, he said were all probably living in a simulation. At least that should make his move to Mars easier.

With heavyweights like Kurzweil and Musk having already gone full-Matrix, aspiring futurists like me will have to go big to get noticed. I predict that electric socks will become self-aware in 2023. There is a 70% chance Ill accidentally learn Mandarin from all of the robo-calls Ive been getting. The singularity is near? Too cautiousI say its the Thursday after next.

While were waiting for tech seers to work up their next big ideas, lets look at what market strategists are saying about the decade ahead, just in case this isnt all a simulation.

UBS points to 790 million more people expected to move to cities by 2030, the number of internet users expanding to 7.5 billion from 4.3 billion, and connected devices numbering 46 billion, up from 10 billion. That should be excellent news for semiconductor companies, like chip roll-up Broadcom (ticker: AVGO) and equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT).

Barry Bannister at Stifel estimates that the S&P 500 index will offer just 3% a year in compound average returns during the 2020s, based on high starting valuations. He predicts a major rotation from growth stocks to value, which sounds harmless enough, but he also points out that in the past, those have started with the S&P 500 dropping by half over two years.

Dont panic yet. Near the end of the decade, Bannister expects us to enter a long period of runaway price growth in commodities. Now panic.

OK, time to breathe easier. Credit Suisses Jonathan Golub would like you to know that even though price/earnings ratios for stocks are one standard deviation above normal (which is to say, high), prices relative to free cash flow are at long-term averages. Valuations have further to run, he wrote on Dec. 18.

Bank of Americas strategy team calls the 2020s a decade of megatrends unlike any before it. Globalization will wane, and consumer prices will rise. Worldwide interest rates begin the decade at the lowest level in 5,000 years of recorded references to the cost of money, so central banks will struggle to stoke growth with monetary policy. On the other hand, Generation Z, or todays teens, will overtake millennials as the biggest generation globally, and the middle class will expand in emerging marketsgood for e-commerce.

By 2035, up to half of the worlds jobs could be at risk of replacement by robots, BofA says. From now until 2040, $20 trillion, or roughly three-quarters the market value of the S&P 500, will flood into morality-based stock strategies. Who will judge which companies are virtuous? I say, let people who have lost their jobs to robots take a crack.

The rest of the themes include climate change (good for electric cars), space tourism (good for aerospace and defense), smart everything (bad for privacy), and China overtaking the U.S. in artificial intelligence by 2030. (Is Musk looking for roommates on Mars?)

That is a daunting swirl of possibilities. I recommend preparing for this brave new world with tactics that are neither brave nor new. Stick with stocks and stock indexes. They represent companies run by clever people who can react quickly to the predictions that come true, and the ones that flop.

Im partial to U.S. stocks. Thats called home-country bias, and too much of it isnt good, so put some in other markets, too. Dont bail out of bonds. They are woefully overpriced, but theyll prove a bargain if stocks tank. Remember commodities? They were popular back when there used to be something called inflation. Add just a smidgen, for old times sake.

And just in case theres something to this singularity stuff, stay on good terms with anything with a silicon chip. As a futurist, Ive been saying thank you to vending machines for years.

Write to Jack Hough at jack.hough@barrons.com

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The 2020s May Be a Doozy. Stick With the Tried and True in Investing. - Barron's