When truth is stranger than fiction: Outrageous Predictions that turned out to be true

Late bloomer: Gold rockets to USD 3,000 as central banks fail on inflation mandate

“Gold has been fascinating to track in the previous years, and it's gained much more widespread interest as an investible asset. The prediction back in 2022 was—of course—outrageous, seeing as gold traded around USD 1,800 at the time of writing. And even though it took much longer than predicted, I still find it outrageous that we have arrived at a point where gold is trading well north of USD 3,000 and still attracts investor interest,” Hansen says.

Back in 2022, Ole S. Hansen called that the price of gold would skyrocket to USD 3,000 in the ensuing year due to central banks' failure in managing inflation in 2023. That didn’t come to fruition, but in March 2025, after a remarkable run over the past couple of years, gold reached the 3k price point predicted a few years ago.

2025 close call #1: Trump 2.0 blows up the US dollar

In an eventful year with Donald J. Trump taking on the role as the United States’ president for the second time, one of John J. Hardy’s outrageous claims was that the new president would blow up the dollar by imposing significant tariffs.

“While some of the potential market impact described in the prediction didn’t come true, the surge in gold Ole describes above and the fall in the USD mean that it did fall well over 10% in very short order from the early 2025 highs. While it has as much to do with the gold price climbing as the USD falling, the two can be viewed as symptoms of the same thing,” says Hardy.

2025 close call #2: Nvidia balloons to twice the value of Apple

“We probably have to call this one a close-ish call because the growth numbers didn’t turn out to be right. Still, the underlying story of AI gaining an increasing importance relative to ‘normal’ tech held true. True enough to be on this list, I believe,” Hardy says.

2025 has been the year of AI, and as such, John J. Hardy, outrageously, predicted that Nvidia, thanks to their ground-breaking AI chips, would balloon to double the size of Apple. That didn’t turn out to be true, but at one point, Nvidia was almost 50% bigger than the iPhone maker.

2022 outrageous prediction: The plan to end fossil fuels gets a rain check

As we headed into 2022, Ole S. Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy, wrote that policymakers would kick climate targets down the road and support fossil fuel investment to fight inflation and the risk of social unrest, while rethinking the path to a low-carbon future. The overarching prediction came to fruition, but it was regrettably fuelled by the unforeseen invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

"Little did we know last November that the world was galloping into an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine," says Ole S. Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy, who explains how he then caught on to the idea that fossil fuels would become relevant again in 2022: "Lack of investments and an increasingly urgent need to support gas over coal led us to come up with this idea, which basically envisaged a more investor-friendly environment for (up until then) shamed investment in so-called 'dirty' energy production. A move that led to the decision by the EU to classify gas and nuclear as green investments," he says.

2018 outrageous prediction: Volatility spikes after flash crash in stock markets

In 2018, we did not get a 25% drop in a single 1987-like event, but we did get two dramatic events in 2018 that somewhat vindicated our point. 

The ‘Volmageddon’ event in February 2018 almost completely wiped out short volatility funds. The event changed the short volatility complex in the subsequent years. Later in 2018, the market was trying to tell the Fed that it was making a policy mistake by hiking its policy rates because the economy was deteriorating. It led to a selloff of 20% from the peak in October to the intraday bottom on 26 December 2018, with the most dramatic trading sessions happening over the Christmas holiday period when liquidity was drying up.

2017 outrageous prediction: Huge gains for Bitcoin as the cryptocurrencies rise

As cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, began gathering momentum in the public eye, our SaxoStrats predicted that the then-leading currency would have a huge bump in value. The rationale behind the jump was justified by US President Donald Trump's regime overspending, causing national debt to rise and inflation to skyrocket. Combining this with the global public wanting to break away from the currencies of central banks, Bitcoin became a preferred alternative. The outrageous prediction ended up coming to fruition and more, with the price of Bitcoin growing from a starting point of USD 800 to almost USD 20,000 at its 2017 peak.

However, the circumstances around the prediction weren’t spot on. It wasn’t as much due to macroeconomic movements of the Trump era as it was due to speculation in Bitcoin that fuelled its initial meteoric rise. However, when looking at the more recent spikes in cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin in 2021, the justifications outlined in the 2017 outrageous prediction held true.

2015 outrageous prediction: Brexit in 2017

In the outrageous predictions for 2015, our SaxoStrats wrote that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) would win 25% of the national vote in Britain’s general election on 7 May 2015, sensationally becoming the third largest party in parliament. UKIP would then join David Cameron’s Conservatives in a coalition government and call for the planned referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in 2017. The timing was a bit off, but the circumstances around it were pretty accurate.

2013 outrageous prediction: Gold corrects to USD 1,200 per ounce

"Our USD 1,200 call, at the time of writing, signalled a one-third drop in the price," says Head of Commodity Strategy, Ole S. Hansen, who, in 2013, had the first correct outrageous prediction.

Here's what he had to say about it: "Gold corrected to and actually went below USD 1,200 per ounce in 2013, as investors increasingly turned their attention to stocks and the dollar. A major trigger was the April 2013 break below key support at USD 1,525—a move that in our mind raised the risk of a bear market taking the price down towards USD 1,100," says Hansen. 

How will the outrageous predictions turn out for 2026?
The predictions aren't meant to come true, but they are meant to be outrageous. If you want to read what’s in store for 2026, be sure to check back with us on 2 December 2025, or visit our website and open an account today to get the predictions sent straight to your inbox.