Posted: Dec 2, 2021 20:30 GMT
It is an annual forecast, which describes unlikely, although not impossible, events that could play the role of ‘black swan’, significantly affecting financial markets.
Danish investment bank Saxo Bank published its “shocking predictions” for 2022, an annual forecast that describes unlikely but not impossible events that could play the role of ‘black swan’, significantly affecting financial markets.
The experts of the financial institution believe that the tension in the international arena is growing and the world system could not cope with this problem. According to Steen Jacobsen, the bank’s chief investment officer, in 2022 “revolutionary movements will intensify”, some of them leading to positive changes, others the opposite. These movements do not refer precisely to the overthrow of the Government of a country, but to large-scale changes throughout the world, a transition to new paradigms, which would incite changes in the thinking and behavior of society.
What could await us in 2022?
According to the entity, the development of hypersonic weapons would boost the space race and lead to a new Cold War. “The latest hypersonic missile tests are generating a growing sense of insecurity, as this technology makes conventional and even nuclear military ‘hardware’ obsolete,” the document explains.
Saxo Bank assumes that attempts to do away with fossil fuels could suffer a severe blow. Depending on the institution, different countries could undermine climate goals, supporting investment in fossil fuels in order to “combat inflation and decrease the likelihood of social unrest.” However, in the opinion of the bank’s experts, “to defend itself from the rise of populism” the European Union I could take the “bold step” of creating a $ 3 trillion superfund for the climate, energy and defense, which will be financed with private pensions for its citizens.
Additionally, Saxo Bank predicts that the US Congressional elections in November 2022 could lead to a constitutional crisis. Democrats and Republicans would fiercely dispute the results, which could delay the functioning of the legislative body. To top it off, by the end of next year inflation in the US would exceed 15%. The country would fall into “the spiral of prices and wages”, when the decision of companies to raise wages to find qualified workers triggers the increase in prices to their highest level since the 1970s.
On the other hand, Saxo Bank predicts that key advances in biomedicine that will take place in 2022, could help to extend productive adulthood and average life expectancy up to 25 years, which could lead to ethical, environmental and fiscal crises in the future. At the same time, next year a group of women could launch a “coordinated assault” against underperforming companies in terms of gender equality, “mimicking the tactics of the Reddit army of meme actions from the years 2020-2021,” which, in turn, would lead to impressive changes in this sphere.
Apart from this, the entity assumes that the Young users would leave Meta’s services en masse [Facebook] in protest against the extraction of personal information for profit, while the company’s attempt to stop this process by expanding the metaverse system would fail. In addition, Saxo Bank predicts that digital entertainment platforms, such as Spotify, would suffer losses due to the expansion of services of digital rights based on non-fungible ‘tokens’ (NFT).
Add Comment