Monday, January 2, 2017

Scoring the Credit Bubble Stocks 2016 Reader Predictions (Part I)

Just about a year ago we held the Credit Bubble Stocks 2016 Reader Prediction Contest. The results are almost in!

If you'll recall, all the questions were binary and each participant had to give a probability estimate for the chance that an event would occur. Of the 24 possible events, 14 happened and 10 did not happen.

Happened
USTs below 1.5% [The biggest surprise of the contest - the average probability was only 19%! Readers thought it was more likely that Trump would be elected president (37%)!]
S&P trades below 1,820.66
S&P trades above 2,134.72 [surprise - 26% chance!]
Crude trades below 30
Trump elected
Republicans retain House and Senate
McClendon/Ward/Clinton/Pearson indicted [surprise - 25% chance]
CHK, NAV, RIG, or SSE bankrupt
Autonomous vehicle
Unicorn liquidates below $250MM

Didn't Happen [compare with things people thought wouldn't happen]
USTs above 3.5%
2yT yields more than 10yT
EURUSD parity
Gold trades below 1000
Gold trades above 2000
Crude trades above 62.58
Kim/Merkel/Saudis deposed
Nuclear
Gross/Ackman/Miller/Hussman/Einhorn retire
Hussman up for the year
CMG trades below 300
FB/AAPL/NFLX/GOOGL below 0%
BBB yield above 5% [This was the major "didn't happen" surprise. Readers had given it a 64% chance.]
Cat 3 hurricane landfall

There were more things that people thought wouldn't happen that did, than things that people thought would happen that didn't.

I'll leave this up for a day or so, readers can let me know if they disagree on the "happen" or "didn't happen" categorizations. Then I'll report the score results.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Suggestions for next year:

SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Flies
Trump impeached
Russian sanctions lifted
Bitcoin outperforms gold
Snowden leaves Russia (or snowden pardoned, etc.)
Obama pardons a ton of marijuana offenders (I've considered buying puts on private prisons for Obama's last few days)
US Federal Antitrust action against a FANG component
Ackman in top hedge fund performers (on that UBS table everyone always looks at)
Ackman in worst hedge fund performers?
Carried Interest "loophole" closed
oversees cash repatriation tax holiday

CP said...

Carryover of the "didn't happens"

USTs above 3.5%
2yT yields more than 10yT
EURUSD parity
Gold trades below 1000
Gold trades above 2000
Crude trades above 62.58
Kim/Merkel/Saudis deposed
Nuclear
Gross/Ackman/Miller/Hussman/Einhorn retire
Hussman up for the year
CMG trades below 300
FB/AAPL/NFLX/GOOGL below 0%
BBB yield above 5%
Cat 3 hurricane landfall

Panda said...

(1) Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey resigns/gets fired
(2) Social media companies fined by the Federal Elections Commission for their suppression of right-leaning news and accounts
(3) Global negative yielding debt goes from ~$10 tn to under $1 tn
(4) Major provocation by Russia and/or China and/or proxy state (ie North Korea) within Trump's first week in office (think a "boots on the ground" move against one of the Baltic countries or Taiwan)
(5) Bitcoin trades over X/under X
(6) Student debt jubilee or major structural reform (ie making it dischargeable in a personal bk filing)
(7) Fannie/Freddie final resolution
(8) SHLD Chapter 11
(9) SHLD Chapter 7
(10) Fairholme Fund (FAIRX) AUM at year-end of under $1 bn ($2.9 currently)
(11) Home mortgage interest deduction eliminated
(12) A major US trading partner recalls their ambassador from the US (ie China, Canada, Mexico)
(13) Terrorist attack (aiming for mass casualties) against a Trump-branded property
(14) Ecological problems lead to largest anti-government protests in China since 1989
(15) "Always listening" devices, such as Amazon Echo, are banned in a major market (ie EU)

Walter said...

Some more suggestions:

1) RMB/USD over 8
2) China bans bitcoin
3) Any country leaves the eurozone
4) UST yields fall to new lows
5) Ackman covers his HLF short
6) Icahn sells his HLF stake
7) TSLA falls under 100
8) VRX bankruptcy
9) A "bigger than Madoff" ponzi scheme is revealed in the US
10) KO is acquired
11) TWTR is acquired
12) Corp tax rate lowered to 20% or less

Anonymous said...

* Either Buffett or Munger dies.
* Another Supreme Court seat opens.

CP said...

New
* Either Buffett or Munger dies.
* Another Supreme Court seat opens.
* 10 UST yield falls below old lows
* VRX or SHLD bankruptcy
* Home mortgage interest deduction eliminated
* Global negative yielding debt goes from ~$10 tn to under $1 tn
* Bitcoin outperforms gold
* Any country leaves the Eurozone
* Buying equal basket of SHLD, N, M, WMT outperforms Amazon.
* Another Unicorn is uncovered as a fraud (theranos style)

Carryover of the Didn't Happen in 2016
*USTs above 3.5%
*2yT yields more than 10yT
*EURUSD parity
*Gold trades below 1000
*Gold trades above 2000
*Crude trades above 62.58
*Kim/Merkel/Saudis deposed
*Nuclear
*Gross/Ackman/Miller/Hussman/Einhorn retire
*Hussman up for the year
*CMG trades below 300
*FB/AAPL/NFLX/GOOGL below 0%
*BBB yield above 5%
*Cat 3 hurricane landfall

Blue Devil said...

Something about trump
Snapchat goes public
Tesla model three within one month of on time
SpaceX falcon heavy
Someone at the top of a Fang stock retires (Tim cook?)
Something about Russia or Syria
Something about China not funding the power of Siberia pipeline!
Oversees tax repatriation holiday
Obamacare repealed (tough to score)
Supreme Court justice actually confirmed this year

Anonymous said...

CNY/USD > 8.0
State/local tax deduction eliminated
Turkey strikes alliance with Russia
Three or more EM countries require IMF rescue
Three or more pharma executives indicted on criminal charges of medicare fraud
FTC/DOJ begins major investigation of one of AMZN/GOOG/FB
One European nation announces plan to ban physical currency within 5 years
Cyber attack takes down >10% of US electrical grid (by retail customers served)

In your basket vs AMZN, you have N..which no longer trades, do you mean NMG?

Blue Devil said...

Pmarca buys twitter in 2017 (I'll take 100%)