Where do we go from here

Terror in Rue de St. Denis, murder on the periphery
Someone else in someone else's pocket
Christ knows I don't know how to stop it
Poppies at the cenotaph, the cynics can't afford to laugh
I heard in on the telegraph there's Uzis on a street corner
— Marillion, White Russian

Last year I finally gave in to the pressure and did a 10 Predictions for 2023 post. I'm not a huge fan of these things, but getting out of your comfort zone is never a bad thing. So, let's look at the scorecard and update things.

Last year's theme was "Losing My Religion." Last year was a mess. So many of the themes I wrote about advanced significantly. So many of them caused a lot of folks to lose their religion over old narratives.

What most of them didn't do, however, was come true. By my count I hit .300 last year — good enough for the Majors but not for the geopolitical prediction business. Predictions #4,6,8 are winners.

The Ukraine War did continue dangerously (#4). De-dollarization (#6) did accelerate as bilateral trade moved away from the US dollar is many areas, while the USDX spent most of the year rising only to collapse in Q4 on ridiculous hopes of eight (8) rate cuts by the Fed in 2024. Oil never dropped below $70 per barrel Brent (#8).

I'd take credit for #9 but the Dow Jones Industrials missed the 40,000 mark by just over 2,000 points. Then again, given that nearly everyone else expected the Dow to collapse into oblivion, I think I should get extra credit for at least calling the shift from bonds into equities for most of the year, to be turbo-charged into the end of Q4 on the perception of a dovish Fed.