Not so outrageous after all

Every Wall Street strategist with a Patagonia vest and a Zyn addiction has some predictions for 2026, but they all tend to blur together after a while: Commodities are the new pick-and-shovel play of the AI trade, small caps are deeply undervalued these days, yada yada yada.

But when the folks over at Saxo make a call, we sit up and listen. The Denmark-based online trading platform publishes an annual list of Outrageous Predictions that are part comedy, part prescient, and always fun to read.

“Our Outrageous Predictions for the coming year are not forecasts, they’re our annual exercise in out-of-box brainstorming on the kinds of crazy things that might just come true,” this year’s report reads. In fact, some recent predictions have been at least directionally accurate: The downfall of the US dollar and skyrocketing gold prices are just a few of the calls that have come closer to becoming a reality.

So forget the same old story from Wall Street: Let’s take a look at some of Saxo’s outrageous predictions for 2026.

• Q-Day arrives early: A quantum computer cracks the digital security of cryptocurrency and banks alike. People pull money out of bitcoin and hoard cash as trust in financial institutions deteriorates rapidly. The losers are traditional banks, while the winners include cybersecurity firms and gold bugs who watch the commodity’s price skyrocket to $10,000.
• Taylor Swift-Kelce wedding spikes global growth: After the wedding, Travis Kelce retires, Swift announces her pregnancy, and the two retreat from public life. Swifties around the globe follow their icon’s lead, sending marriage and birth rates soaring, precipitating a boom in homebuilding and decor sales, while social media networks become ghost towns.
• US 2026 midterm elections proceed smoothly: Democrats take the House, Republicans keep control of the Senate, and AI-generated deepfakes inspire outrage across party lines. The country moves toward a more mature political discourse, inspiring faith in government bonds and a decline in Treasury yields.
• Obesity drugs for everyone—even for pets: The availability of GLP-1 drugs in pill form by late 2026 makes them widespread, spurring on shortages and propelling development of new products for pets. A thinner world means upheaval for the fashion industry, restaurants, food producers, and the entire healthcare market.
• SpaceX announces an IPO: The company debuts the highest-valued IPO of all time, kicking off a stock market space race. Elon Musk declares he’s moving Tesla, SpaceX, and X headquarters to Mars as space-based industries take off.
• A Fortune 500 company names an AI model as CEO: A human co-CEO signs off on all decisions, and while skeptics cry foul at first, several quarters in a row of improving performance and widening margins turns doubters into believers as companies rush to roll out their own AI leadership teams.
• Dollar dominance challenged by Beijing’s golden yuan: China’s gold holdings surpass the US, and eventually an offshore yuan partially backed by gold makes its debut. It doesn’t dethrone the dollar, but it does end its monopoly as foreign investors sell US Treasury bonds and store their money in Chinese debt.
• Dumb AI triggers trillion-dollar clean-up: Agentic AI is everywhere, but at some point a series of glitches creates chaos as companies begin to understand that vibecoding digital infrastructure is a recipe for disaster. Cybersecurity, audit and consulting firms get a boost, while the public begins to doubt the potential of AI.—MR