What’s going to occur in 2024?
No person is aware of, clearly, but traders will place bets primarily based on finest guesses, companies will gamble on future tendencies, and pollsters will ask tens of millions of Individuals what they assume is about to transpire.
So we requested the Yahoo Finance viewers to hitch the membership. SurveyMonkey, from Dec. 18 by Dec. 20, requested 3,848 YF customers 10 a number of selection questions associated to markets, the economic system, and the 2024 elections — and one open-ended query asking what a number of the surprises of 2024 is likely to be.
We ran a similar survey one year ago, and the YF viewers made some prescient calls.
One massive factor our soothsayers obtained proper: There could be a cheerful ending to 2023, with inflation falling and markets rising. Additionally they predicted the electric vehicle revolution would stall, battered tech shares would forge a comeback in 2023, and President Biden’s scholar debt reduction plan would falter, all of which panned out. They erred by predicting surging gasoline costs, an finish to the warfare in Ukraine, and the ascendence of Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidency.
As an alternative of taking predictions at face worth, there is likely to be extra worth in understanding what’s on folks’s minds and whether or not they’re optimistic or pessimistic. In that mild, listed here are 10 insights from what the Yahoo Finance viewers anticipates in 2024.
Donald Trump will dominate folks’s consideration. In our open-ended query, “Trump” was the most typical phrase or phrase, “Trump wins” was seventh, and “Donald Trump” was tenth. “Biden” got here in eighth and “Joe Biden” eleventh. Trump’s mindshare is exceptional for 2 causes. First, Trump is a challenger to the present president, not the president himself. And second, our open-ended immediate included no names, so we weren’t main respondents to reply someway.
Right here’s the query we requested, adopted by a phrase cloud depicting the solutions:
“In your personal phrases, what would be the largest enterprise, financial, or political shock in 2024?”
Lots of these references to Trump are adverse. A qualitative overview of the open-ended solutions reveals many respondents hope or anticipate Trump can be convicted of crimes in 2024, whereas shedding the election or dropping out.
Voters need new presidential candidates. And so they assume (or hope) there can be some. Once we requested who was more likely to win the 2024 presidential election, Trump had the sting. However 34% answered “any individual else.”
Haleymania. Or at the very least, Haleyminia. In our open-ended query, 10 instances as many respondents talked about Nikki Haley as talked about Ron DeSantis, the 2 Republican presidential candidates who’re competing for second place after Trump. Once more, our immediate included no names. Individuals additionally talked about Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California who shouldn’t be working for president, however may if Biden dropped out for some cause. Newsom, curiously, earned 4 instances as many mentions as DeSantis.
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How a few lady president? One repeat reply to our open-ended query was that the USA would or ought to have a girl president for the primary time in 2025. Most such responses didn’t specify who that will be, however some mentioned they’d relish an election between Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley.
Politics dominated our open-ended solutions, however we made certain to ask about markets and the economic system, too. There’s some excellent news.
Buyers are fairly optimistic. Sixty-five p.c of respondents assume the S&P 500 inventory index will rise in 2024, and 35% assume it’ll rise by greater than 10%. They’re most optimistic about tech, which 36% assume would be the best-performing sector. Vitality is subsequent, at 14%, adopted by financials at 11%. Our respondents anticipate supplies to be the worst-performing sector.
Sixty-five p.c assume the annual inflation charge can be lower than 3% one 12 months from now.
Seventy-four p.c assume the unemployment charge can be lower than 4.5% one 12 months from now.
And solely 32% assume there can be a recession, with 49% saying no recession.
Synthetic intelligence is on folks’s minds. “AI” was the second-most-common response in our open-ended query, after “Trump.” Professional-to-con references ran at roughly an excellent ratio. Bullish instance: “AI LLMs [large language models] will progress in usability, functionality and broaden in material at a quicker tempo than anybody thought.” Bearish instance: “AI shares will cannibalize themselves.”
Actual property costs will drop. Most individuals who talked about housing and business actual property assume costs will drop in 2024, however there’s debate about whether or not it will likely be a wholesome correction or some form of crash. One respondent cut up the distinction: “Actual property will not be the market catastrophe as predicted.”
There’s nonetheless lots to fret about:
Extra warfare. The phrase “warfare” was the third-most-common response to our open-ended query. Many of the forecasts have been adverse, a number of apocalyptic. Worrisome instance: “Low-yield nuclear bomb someplace within the Center East.” Extra upbeat: “Warfare ends in Ukraine and Israel.”
China will trigger bother. The Yahoo Finance viewers is worried that China may attempt to invade Taiwan in 2024 or make a extra formal alliance with Russia in opposition to the USA and NATO. However others word that China has its personal issues and a few respondents anticipate the Chinese language economic system to be even weaker in 2024 than in 2023.
Black swan occasions. “Putin is overthrown.” “The adoption of a 4-day workweek within the US.” “Trump flees to Europe.” “X (Twitter) will flip round.” “A politician will inform the reality.”
We’ll report again a 12 months any longer whether or not any politicians advised the reality in 2024, or any of those different predictions got here true.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Observe him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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