Opinion
Papic: US asset outperformance driven by post-2020 fiscal spending is over
“It's the fiscal gravy train that gave us exceptionalism of the U.S. Asset flows from 20 20 to 20 25. That's over.”
Prediction Held up
Papic: Trump will likely moderate tariffs to 5-10% rather than 40%
“I think the response is going to be President Trump saying, I was actually going for five to 10% across the board of tariffs, not 40%. Once the market sniffs that out, I think it's very dangerous to be overly bearish on risk assets.”
Opinion
Papic: The U.S. Is Starting to Trade Like an Emerging Market
“What's happening right now in the U.S., and I don't want to be too facetious or critical, but the U.S. Is starting to trade in many ways like an emerging market.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: Europe Will See a Tsunami of LNG Supply Disproving Deindustrialization
“Europe is going to be absolutely drowned in its tsunami wave of LNG supply that will crash on its shores over the next two years. This whole deindustrialization debate is wrong.”
Opinion
Papic: Commodities offer the best downside portfolio protection in stagflation
“And ironically, I think the best downside risk protection is commodities, which is weird because commodities should be correlated to growth. So when growth suffers, commodities should suffer with them. That's not really a good hedge the way bonds were. But I t…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: China has peaked as a geopolitical power for the next decade
“So I think that China has peaked as a geopolitical power for the next decade.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Feb 2032
Papic: China will fail to transition away from export dependence
“I'm in a camp that says they're going to fail. They're not going to be able to do it, and they're going to remain as export dependent, if not more.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Feb 2032
Papic: China will run a current account deficit over the next decade
“Which means that over the next decade, China will also be in a current account deficit.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: The Ukraine war will cleave the Western alliance further, not unite NATO
“There's a view out there that this will help NATO unity. And I really don't think so, Ted. I think that this will actually cleave the Western alliance further.”
Opinion
Papic: China's CCP legitimacy depends on living standards, not Taiwan
“The Chinese Communist Party can be a legitimate domestic political force without reunifying with Taiwan. We know that because they haven't, and they're legitimate. They continue to rule China. Whereas we don't know what would happen to the Chinese Communist Pa…”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Papic: S&P 500 could easily reach 7,000 by 2024
“I think we can easily be at 7000 SPX by 2024.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: Big Tech has likely peaked due to stroke-of-the-pen risk
“I just think that we're going to enter a period where stroke of pen risk is very high. And I don't think it's going to cause a collapse in prices, but I think this may be the apex and it's all downhill from here.”
Opinion
Papic: Public market ESG is meaningless; real edge is in private markets
“Now, the problem I have, though, is that in the public markets, there's clearly this kind of rubber stamp of ESG that I think a lot of investors have already figured out is almost meaningless. Because you have these ESG indices that are like everybody but poor…”
Insight
Papic: Policy second derivatives matter more than data in policy-induced recessions
“In policy-induced recessions, what really matters is the second derivative in policy, not data.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: US Will Struggle to Bring 10-Year Yield Substantially Below 4%
“They're gonna struggle to bring the tenure substantively below four percent. I think three and a half is the best they could hope for, and that's just not enough, really, to restart some sort of re-leveraging of the private sector because American households d…”
Opinion
Papic: U.S. Private Market Assets Are More Overbid Than Publics
“And obviously, if you want to talk about where U.S. Assets are massively overbid, I think privates are even worse than public.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: Trump will reach China deal, but US assets won't outperform
“I think if he gets a deal with China, which I think he will, I don't think that's good for US assets relative to the rest of the world.”
Prediction Held up
Papic: US stock market probably bottomed at 4800
“That's why I think we probably reached the bottom at 4800.”
Insight
Papic: Markets React to Rate of Change in Geopolitical Risk, Not Absolute Levels
“One of the things that I think is very important as investors start to incorporate politics and geopolitics more and more into their toolbox is just to understand that while you as a human being really cares about absolute levels of risk, the market is not hum…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: Escalation will trigger 1973-style commodity embargoes and stagflation
“And then you're going to start talking about embargoes of commodities, both self-imposed by Russia and perhaps imposed by the West. And then you're talking about inflationary impacts of this conflict being something akin to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which is de…”
Opinion
Papic: Imposing Russian regime change on Ukraine is an outright fantasy
“This idea that they're going to impose some sort of regime change, that's like straight out of a fantasy book that somebody read to Putin when he falls asleep. It makes no sense.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Papic: The Federal Reserve will not risk a recession to curb inflation
“I think the That is extremely sensitive to the political risks domestically in the U S and they will not look to curb inflation at the risk of recession. I don't think they will, but I'm in that camp.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Papic: There is basically no way the US will not get an Iran deal
“There's basically no way that we will not get an Iran deal.”
Assertion Supported
Papic: China's household debt exceeds the US relative to disposable income
“So if you look at household debt as percent of disposable income in China, it's higher than that of the U.S.”
