The Standard & Poor's 500 Index generated a total return of 32.4 percent last year, including dividends, its best performance since 1997, but that leaves the market vulnerable to a correction this year, according to strategists at Barclays and BlackRock.

Barry Knapp, chief U.S. equity strategist for Barclays, tells the Financial Times that last year's stock gains already borrowed from this year's economic growth.

"If you think about the consistent outperformance of cyclical stocks since April, it suggests that expectations of economic improvements in 2014 are largely priced in at this point," he explains.

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"That would suggest we are ripe for a period of consolidation, and a trigger for that could be a normalizing of monetary policy." The Federal Reserve begins tapering its bond buying this month.

BlackRock Chief Investment Strategist Russ Koesterich stresses the issue of valuation. "U.S. equities whether they are fully valued or fairly valued, pick your term, it's hard to argue they’re cheap. Parts of the U.S. market are frothy," he tells the Times.

"The market is vulnerable to a correction, as a lot of good news is priced in and there are signs of complacency, volatility is low."

But Sam Collins, chief technical analyst for InvestorPlace, argues that the widespread expectation of a correction means one is less likely to occur.

"In a highly volatile market in which traders and investors alike expect a correction, the chances are high that it will not occur," he writes on the firm's website.

"Corrections of 8 percent or more usually happen when investors least expect it."

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