Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Pre-scoring for 2017 Prediction Contest

It's time now for the scoring of the 2017 Prediction Contest [previously 1,2,3].

Before we do that, everyone look at the below and see whether you agree with my assessments of whether the events in question happened or not.

The most contentious is the SALT deduction repeal (which I am saying did happen) and the MI deduction repeal (which I am saying did not happen). The reason being that SALT has been all but eliminated, and MI has been mostly kept although capped.

Bitcoin outperforming gold, S&P exceeding 2,500, Cat 3 hurricane making landfall, CMG trading below $300, and especially SALT were the upsets that weren't expected to happen but did.

There were only two things that people collectively expected to happen that didn't: EURUSD parity and Elizabeth Holmes being removed from Theranos. In fact, the dollar had a bad year and Theranos apparently just raised more money!

Overall, only 7 of the possible 31 events happened. People gave the events that did happen an average probability of 44% (sad!) and the events that did not happen an average probability of 31%.

Once we have a respectable chance for any objections to be given in the comments, I will do a post on the winner.

New Happened? Average
* Donald Trump is President of the United States at the end of the year 1 0.92
* A Supreme Court justice is confirmed to replace Scalia 1 0.87
* Bitcoin (@$901) outperforms gold (@$1182) 1 0.38
* The S&P 500 exceeds 2,500 1 0.31
* The state and local taxes deduction is eliminated from federal income tax 1 0.06
* Someone besides Elizabeth Holmes is running Theranos at the end of year (resigns, court appointed receiver, trustee, etc) 0 0.54
* Either VRX or SHLD enter bankruptcy 0 0.41
* Global negative yielding debt goes from ~$10 trillion to under $1 trillion 0 0.41
* The RMB/USD exchange rate goes over 8 at any point 0 0.39
* Buying equal dollar basket of SHLD, JWN, M, WMT outperforms Amazon 0 0.37
* Twitter is taken private 0 0.31
* The 10 year Treasury yield falls below the July 6, 2016 low of 1.336% 0 0.26
* Another Supreme Court seat opens 0 0.24
* Either Buffett or Munger dies 0 0.23
* Another Decacorn (peak valuation >$10 billion) is uncovered as a fraud 0 0.23
* Any country leaves the Euro currency 0 0.20
* The home mortgage interest deduction is eliminated from federal income tax 0 0.06



Carryover of the Didn't Happen in 2016 Happened? Average
* A Cat 3 hurricane makes landfall 1 0.30
* CMG trades below 300 1 0.27
* A Euro hits $1 US. (EURUSD parity) 0 0.63
* Crude trades above $62.58 0 0.46
* The BBB yield closes above 5% at any point 0 0.41
* The 10 year Treasury yield rises above 3.5% 0 0.36
* Hussman is up for the year including dividends (fund currently $7.13) 0 0.35
* Buying equal dollar basket of FB/AAPL/NFLX/GOOGL returns below 0% including dividends 0 0.34
* Gold trades below $1000 0 0.30
* One or more of Gross/Ackman/Miller/Hussman/Einhorn leaves the business (dies, fired, resigns, manages personal money only) 0 0.26
* A 2 year treasury yields more than 10 year treasury 0 0.24
* One or more of Kim/Merkel/Saudis loses power (dies, resigns, or is deposed) 0 0.22
* Gold trades above $2000 0 0.12
* A nuclear weapon is used in anger 0 0.03

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