10 Wild Predictions for 2009

My pal John "the Brain" Tamny over at RealClearMarkets writes a fascinating post on an investment firm that does a "wisdom of crowds" thing with its clients in order to make market forecasts. Here are some of their 2009 predictions, as paraphrased a bit by me:

1) 68 percent think Obama will win.

2) 53 percent think Obamanomics will be bad for the economy.

3) Asked to predict what will be the economy's biggest problem next year: oil/energy (15.5 percent) and inflation (21 percent) got the most votes, while the credit crisis (9.5 percent), Democrats (9.5 percent), and housing (14 percent) rounded out the top five.

4) 30 percent think the S&P 500 will outperform the Russell 2000 by more than 5 percent this year, while another 46 percent believe the S&P will beat the Russell by less than 500 basis points.

5) 67 percent think we'll see $100 oil before it reaches $170/barrel.

6) 55 percent of those surveyed still believe the economy will enter a recession this year.

7) 92 percent feel the dollar will appreciate against the euro this year.

8) 83 percent think a stronger dollar will help the economy over the next five years.

9) 82 percent think John McCain would be good for the economy.

10) 64 percent think equity prices will decrease if capital-gains taxes are increased in 2009.