The Standard & Poor's 500 Index could gain as much as 15 percent over the course of this year, according to Pimco Deputy Chief Investment Officer Virginie Maisonneuve.
U.S. stocks will benefit from a "very benign growth-inflation environment," as well as the Federal Reserve's gradual tapering of its quantitative easing program, she said on CNBC's "Halftime Report" on Friday.
Stocks will also be supported by rising capital expenditures and strong balance sheets, Maisonneuve said.
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A 15 percent gain from Friday's close of 1,857.62 would put the S&P at 2,136.
Maisonneuve said she also believes emerging markets are becoming increasingly attractive based on valuations and vibrant global economic growth.
"I became more positive on emerging markets a couple of months ago when valuations were really very, very cheap," she said.
Her top picks are Indonesia, Brazil, Thailand and Mexico.
"The reason why those markets were beaten up, if you remember during the crisis when there was basically no yield to be had anywhere, a lot of money went into the emerging markets to search for yield," she said.
"When the noise or the seed of normalization or tapering came, a lot of that money came out, putting pressure on currencies and those markets. And clearly, countries that had a current account deficit suffered more."
If the political situation in Russia heats up or China releases weak economic data, that would be a particularly good time to put money into emerging markets, Maisonneuve said.
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