After 35 years of stockbroking for some of the biggest houses and investors in Australia and the UK, the Secret Broker is regaling Stockhead readers with his colourful war stories — from the trading floor to the dealer’s desk.

Well, we all start out a new year looking forwards, our hearts full of hope and joy…

And we end it looking backwards, full of regret and disappointment.

And the market is exactly the same.

Confusion = life/time (x guesswork)

Bold predictions are put into print on how the market or a certain sector or even an individual stock will perform.

Human nature is built around these emotions.

Then, bang in the middle of the year here in Australia, the ATO holds out its hand and demands you cough up.

At that point you will have six months to look back on and only six months left to kinda, just ponder.

In fact, if you manage to live till 80, then you’ll have lived for 4,160 weeks and if today you are 40 years old, you only have 2,080 weeks left to look forward to.

Scary stuff when someone quite evil points this out to you.

A 10 year old has only lived for 520 weeks and a ‘know it all’ 15 year old teenager has only experienced 780 weeks of life.

I can always beat any argument from a demanding, hormonal teenager, armed with these facts.

It’s bollocks, nine out of every ten times

So, when you read about financial predictions for the year ahead, 90% of the time they are talking absolute bollocks.

How can anyone predict the future of financial ‘things’ when no one ever knows when the timing will be.

Hell, they can’t even get the weather right but my piece of seaweed stuck on the side of my greenhouse can.

Sure the prices of houses will come down at some point, but no one knows when.

A buyer will have a different opinion to a seller and one of them will look back in 12 months time and be happier than the other.

Balls of crystal

You need a crystal ball, a pair of crystal balls or a pair of David Beckham’s golden balls to stand an outside chance of predicting something and getting it right.

If you get it right, people will always remember…and if you get it wrong, no one will ever remember you.

It’s the Crash of 1987: Bankers Trust had been riding off the back of their correct positioning for over five years because their fund performance always reflected their past performance over one year, three years and five years.

After that it all went pear shaped for them, and their whole funds management business finally got sold off to Westpac.

Luckily for me, I have a pair of crystal balls, so I am going to make some predictions on what the next 52 weeks may bring to all of us around the world.

1. The market will have a correction
2. Wine will start to come in flat plastic bottles
3. House prices will fall
4. The Australian dollar will trade between 67c and 75c
5. Bitcoin will go up and down by 25%
6. Elon will be bumped from being the richest man in the world
7. Rupert will exit out of News Corp
8. The ASX 200 will fall by 5% over three days and then bounce
9. Trump’s orange face will start to reappear
10. Someone you know will get a new strain of COVID
11. Only one election year promise will ever be kept
12. Z1P will be bid for
13. Jack Ma will only be seen three times in public
14. April 23rd will see a significant world event happen, which will shock us all
15. England will win one game of cricket
16. Nasdaq will fall 18.9% from its 2022 high
17. Another member of the Rolling Stones will die
18. A billionaire will actually be made to pay some tax
19. CBA will reach $107.85 a share before going ex-dividend
20. Prince Andrew will settle

And there you go.

Please print this off and stick it on the fridge and cross them out as they all become true and then we can compare notes at the end of the year.

In the meantime, I shall be polishing my crystal balls, ready for next year.

I will also be 52 weeks poorer by then.

And so will you.

Ha!

The Secret Broker can be found on Twitter here @SecretBrokerAU or on email at [email protected].

Feel free to contact him with your best stock tips and ideas.