Markets Happy Hour Podcast - December 26, 2024 - The Outlooks Arms Race

As we race to year end it is the time for Market Outlooks, although this year it seems that the funny holiday videos have outpaced Market Outlooks in fanfare and promotion. In this podcast we summarize some of recent market outlooks and question their utility. There is another kind of outlook that seems quite a bit more useful however - this Tech in 2025 Outlook from the Wall Street Journal. We go through some of these forecasts and look at their likely implication for a portfolio. See: https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/life-changing-2025-ai-ev-self-driving-tiktok-c2d5c80b?mod=wknd_pos1 We also cycle through market performance in the last trading week of the year and discuss some geopolitical skirmishes that are lighting up our news feed but have received little enough attention given the holiday week. We spend a few minutes on the invincible US consumer too - comparing their savings rates to that of Europe but also question whether the divergence in high and low earning consumers is a sign of the K shaped recovery that seems to characterize the current "soft landing". Thank you for tuning in to the Markets Happy Hour Podcast this year and see you in 2025.