Also for this year, the Danish investment bank Saxo Bank has prepared its shocking forecasts for 2026. These are by no means the investment managers' working scenarios or their investment strategies. They are often deliberately implausible scenarios that are intended only to provoke debate and open the minds of investors.
Indeed, many mistakes in investing are made because of the tunnel effect. This occurs when one focuses on one direction, one hypothesis or one outcome and stops seeing alternatives, side signals and the wider context. For this reason alone, in order to get rid of the tunnel vision of reality, it is a good idea to read the forecasts from Saxo Bank every year.
As an accompanying motivation for reading, it can serve as a reminder that most of the time one or two forecasts a year come true. Not quite literally, of course, as these forecasts deliberately contain a number of other assumptions. But the analysts at Saxo Bank at least manage to capture the important trends.
Last year, for example, they got it right twice when they predicted that Donald Trump would "dump" the US dollar, which he did. The currency fell by more than a tenth.
The second prediction that came true was about the rise in the value of Nvidia shares. Although their stock market capitalization did not reach twice the value of Apple, as predicted, it was almost 50 percent higher than Apple's stock value during 2025. So everyone can try to guess which prediction will come true this time.
Quantum computers will destroy the world of cryptocurrencies
The first prediction foresees the huge rise of quantum computers. Thanks to their computing power, they will be able to break every security system that has been in place so far. The first victim of the arrival of quantum computers will be bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Thanks to quantum computers, the security of bitcoin will virtually disappear. Gold and vault manufacturers will benefit from the fall of cryptocurrencies. Quantum computers will remind us how important it is to own physical assets. They will also benefit security IT companies.
This prediction is one of those that Saxo Bank usually manages to hit, but occasionally they are wrong by a year, two or five. Quantum computers will certainly appear in the future, but no one knows exactly when. It will certainly be a revolution, although how high the price of such a computer will be will matter a great deal. For now, it is astronomical.
The wedding that will change the world and usher in digital absence
A social event can also revolutionise the market. Analysts have included the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce among them. This event is sure to fill social columns around the world, but why should investors care?
After the wedding, after all, they will have a child. The star couple, who are role models for Generation Z, decide to raise their child offline until the age of twelve. The whole family will thus withdraw massively from social networks. They will communicate principally through their web. This move then inspires people all over the world. Social media will thus cease to be a fashion trend forever. This will, of course, sign on the slump in the shares of the companies concerned.
We can doubt that this particular wedding would have triggered such a strong awareness in young people. However, this does not rule out the possibility that the impact of social networks and, in particular, the dopamine issue will become more widely known. The ability to be offline will become increasingly important to many people. Digital absence may thus become a status symbol rather than a failure.
US elections will put an end to populism
In predictions, analysts cannot avoid the most anticipated election. In 2026, these are undoubtedly the US mid-term elections, the so-called midterms. At Saxo Bank, they expect the elections to strengthen the Democrats, but the main impact of the elections will not be that the Republicans will be weakened.
The reason the election campaign will be so hectic is because of algorithms and the overwhelm of AI-generated content. It is the disgust with the style of campaigning that will have the effect of national unification that will force American institutions to raise the level of public debate. In this way, America will move on to overcome populism.
Here again, we can say that this is a bold prediction that will certainly not be realised this year. But that is not to say that it does not point to a real problem. Increasingly hectic campaigns using technological conveniences will either end up with more regulation or a massive shift of the population away from these platforms. This process has already begun. But changing the electoral system is a long haul.
No one will be obese anymore
The next revolution in 2026 will come in the field of fighting obesity. The pharmaceutical industry will produce a new pill, GLP-1, which will reduce weight. However, this new pill will be very cheap, so it will become widespread very soon. It will be so readily available that even overfed pets will be thin again.
What is interesting about this prediction is that analysts at Saxo Bank think that it will wreak havoc in the restaurant and food chains in particular, because people will need less calorie-dense food. Personally, however, I think the opposite would happen. If the GLP-1 pill became available, it would be a pill of bad conscience. People would, in turn, consume fast food in even greater quantities because they would no longer be afraid of the extra pounds.
Soon a rocket to Mars
In 2026, Musk's company SpaceX could enter the financial market. It will be an investor success and will be the first IPO to reach one trillion dollars. SpaceX shares will trigger an unexpected investor frenzy. With the influx of new funds, all research will be greatly accelerated. Massive cargo transport to the Moon will become common in 2027. In 2029, Elon Musk is expected to join a pioneering mission to Mars.
Indeed, 2026 may be the year that major technology companies enter the financial markets. In addition to SpaceX, a similar move could be speculated for OpenAI. These two companies could certainly reach one trillion dollars in the right conditions.
What is unrealistic, however, is the second part of the prediction. Elon Musk is known for his absolute failure to stick to the planned calendar. As early as this summer, self-driving cars were supposed to be driving all over the US. Unfortunately, this plan is far from reality. And so a flight to Mars in 2029 would be a very big miracle indeed.
The new CEO of American companies: an AI agent
The advent of AI will also touch the top floor of the corporate pyramid. In 2026, an artificial intelligence will be appointed to head a US S&P 500 company. An AI director can optimize all segments of a company and, in addition, heed customer feedback. At first, this solution will arouse resistance from market regulators, but the company's good results will break this resistance. AI execution and human vision will take hold.
Leaving aside the legal challenges of this aspect, there will surely be some Fortune 500 US firm that will attempt this move. The marketing potential to become the first AI-driven firm is huge. Appointing an AI agent to head a firm is not a revolution in management, but an admission that we are willing to trade responsibility for optimization, at least until something goes wrong.
China's return to the gold standard
The first step will be for China to announce the true state of China's gold reserves, which are much larger than previously expected. Then the Chinese government will announce that their currency will be backed in part by gold. The gold yuan will become a magnet for all investors and traders.
This new currency, backed by gold and therefore more reliable than the US dollar backed by debt, will become the first foreign trade currency for South-East Asia and the Gulf countries. As a result, investors will divest themselves of US bonds. This will take the gold price above 6 thousand dollars per troy ounce.
If this scenario proves to be true, it will primarily affect the media scene. Speculation about a Chinese return to gold is a frequent theme of the alternative media scene. A return to the gold standard is supposed to be a major trump card to the fall of the US dollar as the world's trading and reserve currency.
If it were to happen, the alternative media would gain weight because they would report on it long in advance. From an economic perspective, China's "golden yuan" addresses the dollar's weaknesses. But on a political level, it would be very difficult for China because a gold standard would require complete transparency on reserve issues and China would have to accept that it would lose control of its capital. That would be quite a sacrifice for Beijing.
The final fall of artificial intelligence
Finally, analysts could not miss a theme that is resonating through the markets with increasing frequency: whether artificial intelligence is an investment bubble or not. Of course, it is not enough to just answer this question in the affirmative. However, the prediction offers us the whole story of this end of the crash.
Those who use artificial intelligence frequently know that it is prone to hallucinations; in the vernacular, artificial intelligence makes strange mistakes. In 2026, we will realise that these mistakes were made covertly by artificial intelligence. Since it has already been deployed in areas ranging from finance to logistics, the system is in danger of collapsing. A new profession of AI cleaners will emerge. New firms, with even better AI, will offer to overhaul old systems. Investors will once again start to rely much more on human management.
In this prediction, we see that contradiction is inevitable in eight predictions from Saxo Bank. While one prediction based on AI to CEOs of large companies spells the end of human management, the last one, on the contrary, says that humanity will return to the importance of human capital.
The year 2026 may finally show us that artificial intelligence has not replaced humans, but merely displaced them. But only until it desperately needs it.