The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 89 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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.”
Giannini: A Broad Distressed Debt Cycle Will Not Materialize
“There's not going to be a distress cycle. Sorry, there'll be some distress deals that are interesting, I'm sure, but you sort of had this period where, oh my gosh, things are going bad, let's raise a distress debt fund, and they still are trying, but just tell…”
Kleinman: Mutual Funds and ETFs Will Blend Private Assets into Products
“Traditional asset managers, i.e. Mutual funds, ETFs, they're gonna start injecting some amount of private assets blended into their products.”
Sacerdote: Inference-time reasoning will be adopted by all AI models
“And now deep seek is basically solidifying this inference time reasoning is going to be adopted by all the models.”
Seides: Major private equity platforms will acquire deal teams within five years
“I'd be very surprised if you don't see one of the larger private equity players try to grow through acquiring teams. They are long capital and short origination or dealmaking capability relative to the capital they could command. So it does make sense that if …”
Direct lending returns will likely fall 200 basis points as banks re-enter
“As that market continues to evolve, and as the banks start to get back into some of these areas, we do think returns are going to come down. Probably by about 200 basis points on average.”
Gave: Non-US growth will outperform US growth as the dollar weakens
“I think we're living through the end of the year of US exceptionalism. After a 15 year standing run, the US dollar is now rolled over. I think most people's portfolio is on position for a world of weaker dollar, and one where growth outside of the US is going …”
Papic: US stock market probably bottomed at 4800
“That's why I think we probably reached the bottom at 4800.”
Heitzmann: Thousands of startups needing capital will fail by late 2024
“There's thousands of companies that are going to need capital between now and the end of 24. The investors at almost every stage have generally been hurt by the macroeconomic environment. The purse strings are pretty tight. But the amount of companies that may…”
Aitken: Investors will absorb all US Treasury bond issuance through 2025
“Who's going to buy all these bonds that the United States is selling in 2023, 20 24, 2025 with a rising budget deficit before the recession comes?
And my answer is everybody.
Everybody.
You give people the right incentive, the right coupon, they will buy it.”
Kayden: Later-stage venture is most vulnerable to market correction
“We don't tend to like larger funds, and we don't like later stage investing, largely because we think that is an area that is sort of more correlated to the public markets, you know, and an arbitrage opportunity, and so at a period of Massive, great inflation.…”
The Bank of Japan's Yield Curve Control Peg Cannot Hold
“In fact, I think one of the best opportunities in the world, quite frankly, is in Japan, where they have the YCC program, where they have tenure rates pegged to 25 basis points, zero to 25. There's no way that's going to hold in this environment.”
Citrone: Shorting Long-End Japanese Debt Offers 50 to 75 Basis Points
“That's one of the best fixed income shorts in the world today. He may not make a hundred basis points, but it's 50 or 75 basis points to be made in the long end on the short side there, 10 years beyond.”
Xu: China's EV leaders will become global market leaders
“And we believe that when China become the largest country
For both manufacturing and consumption, and China's leader will become a global leader.
And we see that happening in the world of electronics manufacturing, in the world of cell phone, and it will happe…”
Average inflation will exceed pre-2020 decade levels for several years
“That over the next several years, average inflation would turn out to be higher than in at least the 10 years prior to say, twenty-twenty. That would be my best guess.”
Wolfe: Venture Returns and LP Cash Distributions Will Slow or Turn Negative
“Eventually the great things that we've seen over the past few years, which are exceptional returns, not just unrealized, but realized and returned and distributed cash to LPs is going to either slow down or reverse and potentially be negative, which is somethi…”
Sternlicht: Desperate SPAC sponsors will cut promotes by 25% to 75%
“The outcome of this will be as the two year anniversary of those SPACs births comes around, they would get desperate and they will start cutting their promotes 25, 50, 75%, just so they don't lose the sponsor equity capital they put up. So it's going to be a b…”
Incoming Biden SEC chair will prioritize mandatory corporate climate disclosures
“So my suspicion is whoever is nominated or potentially in the queue for a SEC chairmanship, this will be a priority for the administration.”
Wolfe predicts a massive pullback in institutional LP allocations to venture capital
“Private equity generally, of which venture capital is like, you know, the tiny bit that's generally clustered into that ass glass, I think is going to see a huge pullback in at least new allocations, if not the pace of allocations.”
Wolfe: WeWork will face severe downside operating leverage when economic conditions contract
“The operating leverage that those businesses, by the way, get on the upside is huge. But once you have this precipitous pruning and these people start disappearing, I think the operating leverage that you get on the downside is going to be really painful. And …”
Underfunded public pensions will miss 7% returns due to heavy bond allocations
“You can see it easily in the state and city funds that are seriously underfunded, even if they're assuming a seven, seven and a half percent rate of return, which they're not going to get, because they've got 25% in two and a half, three percent bonds. They're…”
Friedman: The US will experience real wage inflation
“One view that is completely different from other people is I believe there will be real wage inflation in this country.”
China can sustain 5% to 6% growth without infrastructure spending
“That part of GDP is actually growing quite robustly and will continue to grow, I think, for another at least five to seven years, maybe even 10, but also not forever. And because that's growing at almost 10% a year now, and it's about half of the Chinese econo…”
Kelly: Private Wealth Will Be the Fastest Growing Source of Alternatives Capital
“The demand from private wealth will be the fastest growing source of capital into alternatives for the foreseeable future.”
Gave: Canadian and European Pensions Will Face Pressure to Repatriate Capital
“You're also going to get political pressure on all the Canadian pension funds that are massive to repatriate capital and to bring back money from the U.S. You're going to get the same pressure on European pension funds.”
McCusker: More Institutional Firms Will Merge With RIA Platforms
“The other thing is this is going to continue to happen. I don't think these are the last two firms that are going to tie up with RIA platforms.”
Dawn: PE secondary market volume in 2024 will top $130 billion record
“2021, which is a high watermark up to this point is about one 30. And I suspect we will beat that number this year.”
Corre: Microsoft's acquisition of Activision will get completed
“And it's still not done, but we feel pretty good that it's going to get done.”
Falls: Sharp Fed rate hikes will trigger bankruptcies and higher defaults
“I do think the Fed is probably at the end of the tightening cycle, but it's been a very sharp, short move. I think it's going to result in bankruptcies, credit events. So I think there will be higher default rates, and I'm not sure that's fully reflected in co…”
Lasry: Private equity will not return 15-20% over the next three years
“Today, you can make loans at 12 to 15%, because nobody else is making them, and you're senior and you're secured, but I don't think private equity over the next three years is gonna make you 15, 20%, and if it does, that's great,”
Lasry: Bank lending pullback will last 1 to 3 years
“However, the fact that they're not lending and banks aren't lending, that's going to be a year or two years, or maybe even three years.”
Giannini: Bank retrenchment will drive continued expansion in private credit
“The movement away from traditional sources of credit Is only going to continue. Banks are getting out of that business, and what's happened in the U.S. With Silicon Valley and Signature, I mean, there's just going to be more need for private credit. The amount…”
Rodman: Uranium enrichers will shift from suppliers to net buyers
“What the market hasn't fully digested yet, because this market moves in slow motion, is that on a go forward basis, you probably aren't going to get supply from enrichers, and it's very likely that you actually have demand from enrichers, which is a process th…”
Barth: Private markets will see slower realizations rather than valuation volatility
“Obviously, they all have to get audited, and it all has to be gap, and you've got to get Houlihan Loki or someone else to sign off on the valuation, but I don't think you're going to see the volatility in private markets. You're just going to see a real slowdo…”
Graña: Brazil's incumbent president will likely lose to Lula next year
“And next year, it looks like the incumbent president, based on all the latest polls, would likely lose to Lula, former president of Brazil.”
Orlando Bravo Predicts Thoma Bravo Will Double $80B AUM in Five Years
“In five years, we're going to be double the size. We have eighty billion dollars under management, and we can tell how the portfolio is going to do.”
Papic: Trump and Biden will both maintain elevated fiscal spending
“I think both of them are likely to pursue very similar policies that keep fiscal thrust, the G in the GDP equation, at a much elevated level than the last cycle for sure.”
Papic: US-China yield divergence will favor carry trades in China
“So the yield divergence between US and China is going to favor carry trades in China because they're adopting far less stimulative policies.”
Papic: UK and EU will likely reach a skeleton Brexit deal
“In negotiations, look, I think the odds are that we do get some sort of deal, likely a deal on a skeleton that they will then negotiate through twenty-twenty-one.”
Medicare going cash-flow negative will end excess rents for healthcare monopolies
“And I think that trades over because Medicare is going to go cashflow negative in the next few years.”
Third-party ESG ratings will not converge like credit ratings
“And I think that that will remain over time. People sometimes wonder if they'll converge like the credit rating agencies have converged, but I don't think that's the case because they're fundamentally often measuring different things or placing emphasis on thi…”
Siegel accurately predicts COVID-19 will become an ongoing managed condition
“We'll get this under control, it'll be a new virus that we deal with on a, an ongoing basis, like the flu, or SARS, or MERS, or AIDS, or polio. There will be a vaccine, there may be a cure, and we'll move on to the next crisis.”
A 24/7 sports betting news network will launch by 2021
“There's going to be a twenty-four-seven gambling news network. Guarantee that within the next two years. Guarantee it.”
Friedman: US fiscal stimulus will cause big-city unskilled labor shortages
“Once you see the effect of these things, it's even gonna create in cities, in big cities, a, what we call an unskilled labor shortage.”
Late-Cycle Fiscal Tax Cuts Will Drive a Hotter US Economy
“You would think based on that observation, the probability is higher that in 2018 and 2019, the US economy will run a bit hotter than it has done over the past several years.”
Global Capital Allocations to Onshore Chinese Equities Will Inevitably Increase
“Whether it be passive money or active money, over the next several years, there will be increasing allocations to Chinese onshore equities, and that's not going to go away.”