Predictions for 2022
If you have any predictions of your own please email them to marcus@marcustoday.com.au and I will compile them for an article on our return.
GUARANTEED PREDICTIONS FOR 2022
- That 99% of strategists in the US and Australia will forecast the market going up 9% next year. Here's why:
- That all the strategy projections will be riddled with the words “Could”, “Might”, “May”, “Except”, “If”, “Unless”, “Possibly”, “Perhaps”, “Maybe” and “Feasibly”.
- That small time strategists that nobody listens to will use the words “Conviction” before their recommendations.
- That almost all articles will include a number “The Five things…”, “The Ten things you need to know about 2022”.
- Those articles not including a number will include the words Buffett or Warren, Munger or Charlie.
- That the most clicked on article in the Business press on New Year's day will be titled “The Ten things Warren Buffett will do in 2022”.
- COVID becomes a non-issue.
- 2022 sees a quiet bull market - which is what we hoped for last year and, COVID aside, is pretty much what we got this year.
- China ramps up steel production. BHP, FMG and RIO pay big dividends AND recover this year’s highs.
- Politics takes a back seat for a year.
- China buries the hatchet with Australia and trade resumes.
- No Chinese territorial blow ups.
- Poseidon Nickel does a "ten-bagger" and I can retire.
- The stock market goes up 9% (!)
- COVID hangs around and the stock market doesn’t care.
- EV stocks trundle higher but Electric Vehicles don’t arrive for yet another year.
- Big Tech outperforms without regulation changes.
- Fixed mortgage rates creep quietly higher.
- Property prices plateau.
- The Australian general election dominates the media when we return from holiday but doesn’t fuss the stock market whatever the outcome.
- Metaverse stocks become a theme.
- Cryptocurrencies hit record highs again and again as “big money” ETFs and Managed Funds get involved (and still no-one knows whether it’s something important a massive ponzi scheme).
- Work places develop standard working at home policies.
- A new Delta variant proves more transmissible and more deadly. Lockdowns and border closures trigger significant GDP downgrades, a fall in the energy prices, a collapse in travel stocks and airlines and Peninsula and Northern Beaches house prices to double.
- The “Big One” happens – money printing comes home to roost – inflation spirals into double figures. US ramps interest rates up 6 times in 12 months and Gold hits a record high. Small companies get destroyed. The Marcus Today RBP correctly calls the precipitous moment and saves its Members millions.
- A shortage in foreign workers (caused by more permanent border closures) spikes wages and kills profitability in the unskilled worker hungry retail, leisure, hospitality, corporate services (cleaning) and gambling industries.
- Facebook, Meta, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok are regulated with a ban on anonymous content – all users must be identified.
- An explosion in more fashionable/friendly/safe/identity verified social media platforms fragments social media domination killing share prices of major US companies.
- It becomes politically acceptable to ignore Climate Change. You might note that a Clean Energy Index (Code ECO) in the US is down 30% in 2021 against the S&P 500 up 26% YTD. The index took off on the Biden election and has since returned to the pre-Biden level of disinterest.
- ESG responsibility changes corporate behaviour at significant cost to margins and profitability for Australian resources companies.
- ESG interest peaks and is forgotten.
- The biggest IPO of the year is an NFT marketplace company.
- Cryptocurrencies regulated out of existence – Government-backed cryptocurrencies rise to domination killing speculative interest and volatility.
- A Chinese territorial dispute (South China Sea, Bhutan, Taiwan, Japan, India, Vietnam) blows up into military action.
- China decides not to deal with Australia and in particular looks for alternative sources of iron ore.
- Trump nominates for the 2024 Presidential Election.
- A significant Terrorist event catches markets by surprise, possibly even targets stock market-related infrastructure (be set up to handle those once in a lifetime events that happen every ten years).
- New technology renders existing nuclear weaponry obsolete as more accessible and devastating technology turns all wealthy nations into a global threat – the arms race that follows redirects defence spending and the concepts of Superpowers, NATO and East versus West are redefined and replaced by a global military Federation of Armageddon capable nations.
- Cathy Wood sells all her Tesla.
- Magellan becomes the best performing fund manager after Hamish steps back.