Analysis

Educational exposure of ideas, assumptions or hypotheses, based on proven facts" (which need not be strictly current affairs) Value in judgments are excluded, and the text comes close to an opinion article, without judging or making forecasts , just formulating hypotheses, giving motivated explanations and bringing together a variety of data

Predictions for 2024: Trump, Biden, bitcoin, X bankruptcy, Barbie and Taylor Swift

Kiko Llaneras’ predictions for the coming year, covering world elections, economy, technology, entertainment and geopolitics

Taylor Swift at the premiere of 'The Eras Tour' movie in Los Angeles.MARIO ANZUONI (REUTERS)

Kiko Llaneras

Jan 19, 2024 - 15:49CET

Those of us who engage in public speaking tend to make non-falsifiable predictions. It is human, but cheating. Think, for example, of someone saying that he “does not rule out” a new pandemic or that the Cowboys “could” win the Super Bowl. These are empty statements, because it is evident that these events are possible. The difficult thing is to estimate their probability: does the person speaking believe that they have a 1% chance? 10%? 80%? Saying “maybe” or “possibly,” without specifying, is a rhetorical trick to talk about the future without putting your neck out. That’s why probabilistic predictions are valuable: putting numbers to your statements helps to hold you accountable.

Here, then, are my predictions.

(Instructions: Each prediction is a percentage with the probability I assign to each statement. Unless I say otherwise, everything refers to the last day of 2024).

Donald Trump after winning the Iowa Caucuses. BRANDON BELL (Getty Images via AFP)

🗳️ World elections

USA: Joe Biden will be the Democratic candidate → 92%.

USA: Donald Trump will be elected president → 45%.

Mexico: Claudia Sheinbaum will be president → 80%

South Africa: Nelson Mandela’s party (ANC) will fall below 50% of votes for the first time in 30 years → 58%.

United Kingdom: Rishi Sunak will be prime minister → 33%.

Note. For the elections, I have looked at Metaculus and polls on Wikipedia. For example, for the U.K. I reasoned thus: (1) Metaculus says that Labour will have a majority with 85% in the next election; (2) that matches their lead in polls (400 seats out of 650). However, (3) it’s not certain that the election will be in 2024, it could be in January 2025; let’s say that’s 75% to 25%. Also, (4) there is some chance that Sunak will lose office for another reason. Therefore, the probability of Sunak losing office is 85% x 75% + 3% ≈ 66%.

🗺️ Geopolitics

Russia will control Ukrainian territory beyond that occupied before the 2022 invasion → 70%.

There will be a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine → 23%.

China will invade Taiwan → 5%

Sweden will join NATO → 95%.

💰 Economy

Bitcoins will end in positive → 65%.

Argentina will dollarize its economy → 15%.

China will grow by less than 4% in 2024 → 37%.

Novo Nordisk will be the most valuable European company (here) → 75%

Comment. Here I have relied on reading press and looking at the numbers. For example, cryptocurrencies have in their favor that the U.S. SEC has just approved bitcoin ETFs. With the size of the companies, I have looked at the numbers (Novo Nordisk has quite an advantage over its nearest competitor) and their prospects (favorable for the pharmaceutical industry, which markets the new and successful anti-obesity drugs).

Apple will launch the Vision Pro, its mixed reality glasses, in 2024. Apple

🚀 Technology

Intel shares will rise → 66%.

Nvidia shares will rise → 57%.

Microsoft shares will rise → 66%.

Apple shares will rise → 55%.

Alphabet shares will rise → 62%.

OpenAI to announce GPT-5 → 70%.

An open-source model will match GPT-4-Turbo in capabilities (solved here, with 95% CI) → 60%

Sam Altman will be fired from OpenAI again → 20%

Social network X/Twitter will file for bankruptcy → 33%.

Elon Musk will continue to be the owner of X/Twitter → 73%

SpaceX’s Starship will reach orbit (with this criteria to resolve) → 66%

Note. With stocks, I have used two shortcuts: it is very difficult to predict their evolution, but I think there are reasons to bet on techs. For the rest I have read press, tweets, other people’s predictions, etc.