Market growth has gotten ahead of economic growth, and that will likely mean more episodic bouts of volatility in 2015, like we saw in October, said BlackRock’s Global Chief Investment Strategist Russ Koesterich. Higher valuations and investor complacency are playing a role, the fund company said.

Even if markets continue to rise in 2015, the gains won’t be as easy as they have been. We’ve been in a period of significant gains in equity and credit markets, and those gains are predicated on markets becoming more expensive, Koesterich said, during a recent press briefing in New York. Take stocks in developed countries, for example, where valuations are up two-thirds since a low in 2011. Real bond yields are down 50 percent from 2011, and credit spreads are also on the decline.

In addition, investors won’t have such benign reactions to political events going forward, said Peter Fisher, senior director of the BlackRock Investment Institute. We’ve been in an environment where monetary and credit conditions were benign, and when that becomes more normal, the firm expects volatility to return to more normal levels.