Sigh. Well, they’ve started in force, especially in the world of financial media. The pundits are trotting out all the “surprises” and “shocks” that are going to take place in 2017.
You know what’s weird about all these articles? Hardly any of them look back to see how the same author did the LAST time they issued a similar missive (e.g. one year prior).
I thought of this just now, since I was intrigued at the post over on ZH about Doug Kass’ 15 big surprises for 2017. To his credit, unlike Gartman, at least he’s REALLY specific with his predictions, and some of them are real doozies.
But from what I could tell, no one bothered asking how he did with his 2016 predictions. One Google search later, I had my answer. Here’s the article, and here are some of the predictions from it.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 1,100 points — the largest one-day point decline in history.
- Web entrepreneur David Rosenblatt replaces Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo (YHOO).
- Two private-equity firms compete to acquire retailer Macy’s (M).
- JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) merge. Goldman Sachs (GS) significantly bolsters its money management operations by acquiring T. Rowe Price (TROW).
- Apple makes a $20 billion+ acquisition and the shares trade at $90 after two consecutive, large earnings misses.
- Investors become further concerned when Buffett falls and breaks a hip, causing him to be away from Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) for several months. As result (and in the wake of move lower in Berkshire’s share price to below book value), Buffett is forced to announce the name of his successor, who begins to pick up some of the Oracle’s responsibilities in 2016.
- Given the world’s chaotic landscape, the November election is much closer than expected, but Clinton beats Trump 293 electoral votes to 245.
- I predict 2016 could see the seventh recession in the last 45 years, with stocks experiencing a 20% decline.
Anyway, you can read the article for yourself. As far as I can tell, there are about 40 specific predictions, and maybe 2 or 3 or them sort of kind of came true if you squint your eyes just right.
And yet people still gobble this stuff every single year.
