Sunday 3 January 2021

2021 Predictions - maybe the hardest one in 14 years


We started this little tradition 14 years ago now, gulp, how time flies. 

As I said last week, back in 2006-9 myself and the readership often got 4/5 or better for predictions, it continued at a good rate until the last couple of years when the winner, like last year, often only got 1/5. The world has become more unpredictable or perhaps the authors and readers more stupid....

But now we have 2021, with a global pandemic and runaway stock market fuelled by frankly mental levels of money printing - all the whilst having Russia and China waiting in the wings and a geriatric in charge of America. 

So, good luck, we will need it for both the game and as the kids say, IRL. 

Here goes

1) FTSE close on 31/12/21

2) Share price of Tesla on 31/12/21 (this stock, the focus of the irrational market, will be the bell-weather for a market crash too this year...or not...)

3) When will the Tier system end in the UK (assumes this year...optimism central I am)

4) Who will be US President at the end of the Year

5) What price will Bitcoin be in US Dollars?

A nice rounded global focus there, bit more on the markets this year. As always there are bonus points (to a maximum of one) for guessing some major geo-political event too in your response. 

Good luck all...

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

FTSE: The optimist says 7500 - 8000 range after a large sustained rally after Easter. I've just started investing again, so the realist expects it drop to 5000-500 :D

Tesla: I'm expecting a bit of a reversal this year for tech stocks, with them dropping and more trad ones rallying, so I guessing TSLA will be around 500

Tier system. Rolled back in t'north after Easter. Fully gone across England and Scotland by June. Mark Drayford will somehow ensure Wales is still tiered until next January.

Prez: Biden.

Bitcoin: Around 50k GBP

Major event: Iran attacked by other Arab nation

Thud said...

I'll take the easy route and go with anon above but perhaps with a slightly more optimistic view on ftse so 8k there, oh and a helping hand from Israel.

david morris said...

With a de facto lockdown on the cards until at least Easter, would it not be better to re-schedule the Annual Predictions to commence May 1st ?

Nick Drew said...

1) FTSE 5,900

2) Tesla is another Enron waiting to happen ...
https://www.begintoinvest.com/enron-stock-chart/
Will it be 2021 comeuppance for Musk? Who knows? I'll say 400, but that's a falling knife. Just as likely 0, plus gaol for him (am I allowed to say that?)

3) Tier system ends in Feb during total lockdown, replaced by a completely different approach

4) President Biden, hanging on to complete at least one year, everyone trying to figure out how to make a politially adroit "dignified voluntary" handover in the teeth of massive Republican claims it's an illicit fix to get a female PoC pres in office

5) Bitcoin U$ 15k (I have no clue)

Events? China won't invade Taiwan (as someone suggested aroud here recently). Russia might try something, probably by proxy as the Georgia thing in Aug 2008 didn't exactly enhance Putin's reputation (even tho I predicted it in Jan 2008 - my finest C@W Predictions moment ...) Still scope for Trump to pull a grotesque farewell stunt, though again prob by proxy: I'm guessing the US military has resolutely decided to keep its hands clean, with even more determination than over the past 4 years. I'll go with Something Bad in S.Africa

GridBot said...

FTSE: 6400 i.e no growth in the uk and asset prices propped up by QE.

Tesla: $1000 having had it's exponential growth period compressed by corona whereupon the disciples have shunned the value investment approach in favour of the offerings of a soothsayer/Messiah

Tier system: in place until summer 2022 in some for or another, HMG's efforts to vaccinate will be found wanting, there will be a cock up, it won't have been delivered properly until december 2021 at the least, whereupon there will be some other mysterious reason why the tier system is still needed...

US President: Komrade Kamala.

BTC: $38500 having dipped briefly as folks cash in on bubble it'll rise again as FIat's around the world are devalued.

Other things on the predictions:
There will be talk in the press about the negative enviromnetal impacts of electric cars. many of which have the embedded carbon in the manufacturing process of 30,000 miles of a convential ICE.

lots of talk about hydrogen - possibly a grand announcment by HMG to either subsidise offshore renewables to provide the assets needed to make a surplus to make this hydrogen - or even a gvt backed green investment fund announced to do just this.

BOJO will not be prime minister by end of year. Rishi S will be.

Trump facing trumped up charges...

Peace and good tidings to all, and thanks to OGH for hosting!

GB

andrew said...

1. Ftse at 7250
There will be general relief things have not gotten worse. The relief is misplaced.

2. Tesla about 200 going down
There will be other cars that do electric just as well. Green tax subsidies wound back around the world.
Someone will ask for FCF and for he first time, holders will listen.

3. Tier system ends about end of june.
Assuming no mutations....

4. Biden
Or trump for those who live in the alternate USA and follow qanon .

5. Btc will be 1000
Blockchain now uses as much electricity as pakistan. A lot of it is mined in xingiang. It will be increasingly used for (large, anonymous) cross border money transfers.
Not to say it wont be 50k in dec 22.

Events...
China will not invade Taiwan but their coastal waters will extend around the island and will be policed by the chinese coastguard (*) ... for regional security. Ships will be stopped and inspected for contraband at random.

(*) coastguard vessels are very very similar to navy vessels.

Jan said...


1) FTSE 6800

2) Tesla crashes in the autumn and most investors lose their shirts

3) We will be in permanent lockdowns for most of the year with occasional respites eg 2 weeks in the summer to visit family etc. Good times will always be just around the corner.

4) Kamela

5) BTC will crash and then rise again to $40K

China will overtake the US as the biggest economy. Riots and looting in many cities in the US and the national Guard deployed.
Iran cosies up to China and China pays for oil in yuan. Gold and silver rise. Shortage of materials needed for EVs which sends some prices rocketing. Supply chain disruption all over the place and many of them brought home eg we grow our own lettuces and tomatoes. Inflation starts to rise 3% by year end. House prices flat although Rightmove/Halifax etc will say they're rising. Agree with GB Trump will face trumped up charges and threat of jail.

Old BE said...

Ooh good questions. Crappy New Year all.


1) FTSE close on 31/12/21

7145 (a nice random number in case guesses are close, but basically near enough but not quite pre-Covid levels)

2) Share price of Tesla on 31/12/21 (this stock, the focus of the irrational market, will be the bell-weather for a market crash too this year...or not...)

722

3) When will the Tier system end in the UK (assumes this year...optimism central I am)

Monday 11 Jan 2021. Bear with me. New national lockdown from Monday, with a national (England) approach to (gradual) easing once significant inroads have been made by vaccine rollouts. All restrictions finally removed by 1 July 2021.

4) Who will be US President at the end of the Year

Biden. He's not gonna pop his clogs just yet. If any new/existing scandals risk him needing to resign it won't happen right away or perhaps ever. Trump seems to have shown how you can ride out serious problems.

5) What price will Bitcoin be in US Dollars?

$5500.

Old BE said...

Event: One of the more fragile Euro members (France/Italy) will demand a bailout and be denied by a legal restriction (e.g. German constitution or the Finnish parliament), leading to de facto default.

Bill Quango MP said...

FT 7000

Surely the vaccine will ensure an ending of lockdowns by Easter?
Assuming it does what it says on the line, lockdown to tier 2 should be everywhere, by summer at the latest.

Tesla. The scam continues. Will be much the same price.

President. Biden. Looking more and more like Gerald Ford’s do nothing, achieve nothing, just stop it getting any worse, presidency.

Bitcoin . No idea.

* Trump Jnr announces his intention to run at next election. Building on the success of his father’s policies.

Anonymous said...

FTSE - 4100

TSLA - gone

Tiers - 2026

Prez - Biden

BTC - 6600

Addenda - US-backed Colombia invades Venezuela

jim said...

Guesswork time.


Tesla - $780 a bit of up, a bit of down, not found out yet.

FTSE - 7100 a bit of up, a bit of down

Tiers end - July 2020 a bit of a slow job

US Pres - Biden

Bitcoin - $28,500 a bit of up, a bit of down

dearieme said...

I predict Assange will not be extradited to the US, said Sir Keir Starmer.

dearieme said...

P.S. It's "bellwether" the allusion being sheepish not rainish.

Nick Drew said...

dearieme, it's "CityUnslicker", the allusion being spellchecker-not-consulted, not spellchecker-not-working

Don Cox said...

"President. Biden. Looking more and more like Gerald Ford’s do nothing, achieve nothing, just stop it getting any worse, presidency."

Stopping things getting any worse would be a major accomplishment. As good as Trump not starting a war.

Don Cox

DJK said...

FTSE100: I think maybe 6800. I don't buy the Roaring Twenties hypothesis, partly because I think it's already baked into prices, but also because I think that the recovery will be slow and extended.

Tesla: It’s certainly a bubble and there are probably some horrors hidden in the accounts, but I think $990 in a year’s time. Markets can be irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

I think there will still be restrictions in twelve month’s time. At the very least, facemasks on aircraft, and probably in shops, together with WFH. I think that vaccine supply will be harder than people hope, and that together with some nasty mutations will slow down the return to normality.

Biden will still be prez, but his many senior moments will be widely discussed, with lots of calls for Harris to replace him.

Bitcoin: $19,000. A slowdown, but no crash. (I think it’s worthless, but there are clearly plenty of people who disagree.)

MSJ said...

1 - 8000
2 - $350
3 - Sept
4 - Biden
5 - $52000

Graeme said...

Iran already seems to be working on the basis of a resumption of normal service. Biden has appointed the same guy who negotiated the agreement that Trump tore up. The centrifuges are already at work

E-K said...

After a year like last's I don't think I'll do predictions.

E-K said...

Oh.. OK then !

FTSE 7500 (just following the crowd here, really)

TESLA £733.25 (because that's $1000 at present exchange rates and TESLA is technically diverse and trades on myth and legend status.)

Tiers end - 2022, Spring. (They're using the Spanish Flu handbook.)

President USA - Harris (a few senior moments will see to that. He should avoid wearing white trousers in public)

Bitcoin - £32,000 (I just looked at the trajectory on a graph and I think major investors will hold out - also drug dealers are the only people travelling on public transport and are making a killing in this crisis... the stench of cannabis is everywhere.)

Elby the Beserk said...

Only one. America to descend into violence and chaos.

Anonymous said...

@EK - the smell of cannabis has been everywhere for looong time.

In the 80's it was readily available in many schools in the Oldham area. In the 90's me and friends had little trouble acquiring it at college and unis across the North West and Midlands, which was somewhat amusing as I'd been fervently anti-weed at school.

Rural areas across West Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire were riddled with it in the 2000s, and most cities came with the fug.

I didn't see too much around Cornwall though - well, excepting the surfer havens and Redruth (there's a geology campus there).

And, of course, London. Pre-covid, you could barely go 15 minutes inside zones 1-3 without catching a whiff.

Same in many US and European cities.

As my geographical scope increased, so did my awareness of just how endemic it is.

E-K said...

Yeah. But you didn't see people walking openly with joints in public spaces and skinning up at bus stops.

Anyway.

This comment by Jan Moore is worth a read, if all too depressing. It laments yet another bungle by this government - the disastrous roll out of the vaccines in contrast to the competence of the scientists who discovered them.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13660661/buffoon-boris-just-like-churchill-the-ad-bulldog/

We should be angry with this government.

Don Cox said...

" the disastrous roll out of the vaccines in contrast to the competence of the scientists who discovered them."

The scientists are selected by examinations and then by their research records. The government is selected by universal suffrage. They are representatives of the people. You can always vote for different representatives at the next election.

If you prefer a technocratic dictatorship to democracy, you could move to China. But you won-t get a vote there.

Of course it would be good if MPs knew more about maths and science, but that's the fault of the schools. And MPs certainly need to know about history and human nature, which technocrats often don't.

I was vaccinated last week, and the rollout seemed to me to be going very smoothly. They were actually on time, which is very unusual for the NHS. The change in interval from 3 to 12 weeks, although frustrating, seems like a good decision. It should get the R number down sooner.

If you are going to be angry with anyone, it should be those who insist on holding parties and raves.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

@EK - you certainly did, just because something has become more obvious, don't think it wasn't blatant before!

@Don, Kev and the Sun are correct though. The government (in general, not just the Tories specifically) are doing a poor job with the roll out.

PHE are refusing to work on Sundays, and there's an overabundance of red tape in bringing back medical staff.

So yes, blame those breaking the rules for helping it spread, but the government has the tools to rectify the whole situation now and should be on a proper war footing, not farting about to keep the mandarins happy.

Anomalous Cowshed said...

1) 6300 - off around 2% from YE2020. Mainly as I suspect sterling will strengthen over the latter part of the year.

2) TSLA, 730. But god only knows.

3) It won't. But by summer, I expect that most places within England will be in Tier 1. But the system, or it's rebranded replacement, will still be knocking about for the rest of the year.

4) Biden.

5) 12,000~13,000.

Geo-politics; I strongly suspect that once Biden is sworn in, then North Korea will test the waters - fairly swiftly, by end-April.

German federal elections - no Merkel come September. France will want to assert some form of political dominance, further EU federalism, before they start in earnest, so May/June. Given that the Turks are also likely to want to see which way the wind is blowing post-Trump, and that over 2020 their nationalist cyber-twats were active on various social media, bitching and whining about the Greeks and the French actions towards the eastern Med, there'll be one hell of a row once a new Chancellor is in place.

India and China might kick-off. Small scale border actions.

And there's AfCFTA. The Chinese appear to have made swaps lines available to some African central banks already, and I reckon the US will do the same. The ECB - not so much. BoE - may be, depending on the US. But that's a bit of a punt, over a fifteen to twenty year time-scale.

So, going to go with Erdogan being an ambitious little sod, dragging the Russians, Iraqis and Iranians, Greeks and a politically fractious EU into the fray. More significant than the other options.

E-K said...

To be fair on the Government they're ahead in vaccinations over the vast majority of other countries.

E-K said...

BTW

I don't actually have a problem with cannabis but I don't think it should be normalised. I've let someone smoke a joint in my garden.

It does cause problems with many people and often dependency and lack of motivation.

If smoking and drinking had only just been invented they wouldn't legalise it now.

PushingTheBoundaries said...

1. 7245
2. 356
3. Still exists, Tier 1/0 by Summer, but ready for Autumn/Winter flare.
4. Biden
5. 175

Other:
'life' to be declared elsewhere from this planet;
China to suffer severe military defeat;
EU members finally suffer a monetary default - all hands on deck!

Nick Drew said...

PTB - China's defeat, tell us more!

(Vietnam gave'em a bloody-nose surprise, but that was yonks ago. India?)

PushingTheBoundaries said...

Hello ND, I meant in terms of their military being humiliated in some way. Perhaps a sub being forced up in another country's territorial waters. Or, as alluded to by another commenter, they will get a 'bloody nose' near the Indian border.

They obviously have a massive army, but their Navy is less skilled and resourced, though I expect this to change in short time. The Air force does have some formidable looking F-35 knock-offs, but you still need the skilled, experienced pilots.

Given they're flexing muscles against WHO, I expect them to try the same in a geographical setting - one of those flexes will go less well for them.

Nick Drew said...

Fair enough!

(might depend on whether S.E.Asian countries feel that Biden has got their backs, I guess)

Anonymous said...

Well, US Civil War 2 seems to have started with a bit of insurrection at Trumps behest*, so whoever had that has one point already!

The treacherous tangerine, the Y'all Qaeda bunch and the Republicans who are putting power and party before nation all need to be rapidly dealt with.

*In a "who will rid me of this turbulent election result?" way.

Elby the Beserk said...

"Elby the Beserk said...
Only one. America to descend into violence and chaos.

4:45 am
========================================================================

So I win then?