From Saxo Bank
Our Outrageous Predictions for the coming year are not forecasts, they're our annual exercise in out-of-box brainstorming on the kinds of crazy things that might just come true. From earth-shaking quantum computing breakthroughs and Taylor Swift goosing GDP to AI taking over in the boardroom and obesity drugs in your afternoon snack and in your dog's food bowl, 2026 might prove a wild ride indeed....
....MUCH MORE
Executive Summary: Outrageous Predictions 2026
Summary: Read Saxo's Outrageous Predictions for 2026, our latest batch of low probability, but high impact events that could just happen.
The future almost never arrives in straight lines. Whether its’ technology, culture, or politics, changes and evolution often come slowly from year to year. But then, suddenly, there is a lurch. Saxo’s Outrageous Predictions live in those lurches. They are not a house view or a forecast; they are low-probability, high-impact thought experiments designed to stretch the imagination and sharpen debate about what could happen if things leap forward in unexpected ways.
Let’s take a wandering tour of the eight outrageous developments that just could await in 2025 [sic]. First, in tech, take cryptography and imagine what happens if Q-Day suddenly arrives in 2026, the day that quantum machines can crack yesterday’s digital locks effortlessly. Crypto collapses; gold screams to five figures; every bank and government scrambles to rebuild trust in a post-quantum security stack. Second, in the same year, markets discover that sudden culture shifts can move macro. A single wedding – Swift and Kelce – tips a generation out of doomscrolling and into backyards, marriages, and baby carriages. Fertility and household formation booms. Economists coin a new phrase with a smile: the Swiftie Put.
Third, in politics, the aggravated partisanship of recent years is suddenly upended after the ugly partisan shenanigans in the U.S. midterm elections shock the silent majority of independents into demanding reform and a strengthening of democratic institutions. Trump stays Trump, but America begins to move on. Fourth, in medicine, GLP-1 obesity drugs in pill-form transform human and even pet health. Waistlines shrink, lifespans stretch, and all food companies race to reinvent themselves for a lighter world....
....MUCH MORE
Finally the whole package (19 page PDF)