Yahoo Finance senior columnist Rick Newman shares some of the biggest predictions for 2023 submitted by Yahoo Finance readers.
Video Transcripts
[AUDIO LOGO]
JARED BLIKRE: Welcome back. Yahoo Finance readers have been weighing in with their predictions for what might be in store in the new year. Senior columnist Rick Newman is here to break them all down for us. And, Rick, when it comes to methodology, just give us a little background here. You told us over the break, you spent– you read, you personally read thousands of these responses.
RICK NEWMAN: I did, yeah. I read all of the write-in responses, actually. So maybe some of our people watching right now actually took this survey we put on the site and we put on our social media channels last week. And we said– we asked for some specific predictions on where the S&P, the NASDAQ, where they’re going to end at the end of 2023, what you think the inflation rate is.
And then I did an open-ended question, just tell what you think the biggest stories or the biggest surprises of 2023 will be. No prompts, so not trying to lead anybody, just a blank sheet of paper, and people wrote in what they — whatever they had to say. And I literally read all of those and then tried to condense what I thought people had to say. And we have smart people in our audience. So I know this from interacting on email with most of them.
JARED BLIKRE: I’ve seen your Twitter account, Rick, not all of them.
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, and social media. And I’m actually often interested in what our readers and our audience and our viewers have to say because they’re out there investing, running many businesses or are deeply involved in businesses. And they know a lot of things we don’t. So I just wanted to know what was on their minds for 2023.
SEANA SMITH: Well, let’s start with the first one that was up there. We just had Trump potentially forming a new political party. We know Trump has announced his intention to run for 2024. His own political party, though, really points to the fact that he’s losing the backing of the GOP.
RICK NEWMAN: Right. So, I mean, Trump should be off our radar screen at this point, I guess, except– except that he is now a candidate again. But of course, he’s commanded our attention all along. And he wants to run again. His political power is clearly wanting, but he’s not going away.
And what looks like is going to happen there is just going to be some kind of civil war within the Republican Party, either as Trump loses influence but still tries to keep control or, as some of our readers suggest, he tries to form a political party, in which case he might take those Trumpy Republicans with him, leaving kind of a rump Republican Party behind, which I think Democrats would love because then those two parties would split the votes of that whole side of the aisle. So something interesting is going to happen with Trump during the next two years because–
JARED BLIKRE: Well, you know it.
RICK NEWMAN: –yeah. It looks like he’s on his way out. But if he’s on his way out, he’s probably going to try to take the ship down with him if he sinks.
JARED BLIKRE: Sticking with politics– and this one is a little bit odd– Vice President Kamala Harris assumes the presidency. Now, you’ve read the responses, not necessarily there will be, but maybe some kind of black swan event.
RICK NEWMAN: Yes, such as President Biden dies in office. I mean, that is literally what–
JARED BLIKRE: He is an octogenarian, after all.
RICK NEWMAN: I mean, he’s 80 years old. So a lot of people said that could happen or he just has– he just gets sick and can’t continue with the duties of the office. I mean, I didn’t anticipate that one.
But as I was reading through these, it popped up many times. And I don’t think that’s wishful thinking on– you know, I’d like to think that’s not wishful thinking. But it clearly reflects people are aware Biden is 80 years old, and they think his age is a real issue.
SEANA SMITH: Yes, of course. That one did take me by surprise. On a more optimistic note, some of our readers are thinking that the war in Ukraine could end in the new year.
RICK NEWMAN: Right. So the question there is, is that wishful thinking or is that plausible? And I don’t think that war is going to end any time soon because Russia has given no indication at all that it plans to withdraw its forces. However, once– Russia is banking on Ukraine freezing through the winter, and it’s also banking on people in Europe losing patience with this war because they’re paying so much for energy over the winter because Russia’s been able to jack those prices up. Once we’re through the winter, I think if Ukraine’s allies survive as an intact coalition throughout the winter, it gets a lot harder for Russia.
Another big question, obviously, is whether Ukraine is going to keep getting Western support. If this coalition sticks together, maybe there’s a chance this war could end by the end of 2023, and that would have excellent market implications. I mean, that would be a huge relief in energy markets– that’s the most direct way that this war affects investors– and also the food markets, and just the instability question. And I think everybody would love it if nobody was talking about the threat of nuclear war anymore.
JARED BLIKRE: I would hope so.
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah.
JARED BLIKRE: And when it comes to student debt relief, not a lot of optimism on that front, so maybe no debt jubilee next year?
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. So this is another one that came up. And I think the people who suggested that the Supreme Court will kill Biden’s debt relief plan, I think they are actually in line with what legal analysts seem to think about the stand– the legal standing for that ground. So when Biden said he’s forgiving up to $20,000 of student debt, something like $450, $500 billion in total affecting more than 40 million people, I think everyone knew there were going to be a legal challenge to that.
There are legal challenges to that. It got quickly to the Supreme Court, and there’s at least a 50/50 chance the Supreme Court will just say Biden cannot do that by executive order. Congress could do it by passing a law. But Democrats couldn’t do that when they controlled both Houses of Congress, and there’s no way the Republican House for the next two years is going to agree with that. So that– if that gets shot down, it’s dead.
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, it certainly doesn’t look promising, at least from this standpoint as of right now. Rick, there was also a couple of other big winners or maybe a couple of submissions that have been submitted more than once. One of those that stuck out to us was this new trend of 3D-printed homes and what that could really mean for the real estate industry.
RICK NEWMAN: OK, so you guys didn’t know about that either, right?
JARED BLIKRE: No.
RICK NEWMAN: So, I mean, I–
JARED BLIKRE: News to me.
SEANA SMITH: We knew a little bit about it, but–
RICK NEWMAN: This is why I like to read through these things because I think people are involved in these industries. They kind of know something or they have investor ideas. Yeah, so I guess 3D– I mean, this is not something I’ve done a lot of research on. But I guess they’re like the new version of prefabricated homes but better and probably cheaper and more scalable.
And look, I mean, one of the reasons housing is so expensive in the United States is we don’t have enough of it. And the reason– there are a bunch of reasons we don’t have enough of it, zoning and permitting is one, and 3D-printed houses won’t solve that. But another one is the builders can’t get the workers. I mean, that’s been a– we know that’s been a big problem for the last couple of years. There were huge problems for a while there with soaring costs of lumber and other commodities that pushed prices up.
So I guess, at least in theory, 3D-printed homes might help you solve the labor problem. You still got to get them permitted. You still got to get them there on trucks that have to burn diesel fuel, which is expensive. But maybe this is one way to relieve some of the pressure in the housing market.
SEANA SMITH: Certainly cool. It really shows us where we could be headed in the future. Rick–
RICK NEWMAN: And we’re going to go back– a year from now, we’re going to go back to these predictions–
SEANA SMITH: And see which ones came–
RICK NEWMAN: –and see how everybody did.
SEANA SMITH: –true. Hopefully some do, hopefully others do not. But we will see. Again, 11 predictions for 2023. You can check it out, Rick’s column on YahooFinance.com. Thanks, Rick.