“Apple’s stock price cut in half? A dark-horse candidate elected as U.S. president? A booming Australia suddenly falling into a recession?” Robert Holmes reports for The Street. “As unlikely as those events may be, they’re among the 10 most ‘Outrageous Predictions’ for 2012 made by Europe’s Saxo Bank. Saxo Bank isn’t completely serious with its far-out calls for 2012. Steen Jakobsen, the bank’s chief economist, acknowledges that Saxo’s annual list of outrageous predictions always has a negative bias to help encourage investors to think outside the box and be on guard for unpleasant surprises. The strategy team said it views the bank’s outrageous predictions as a way of stress-testing a portfolio.”
Holmes reports, “‘Going into 2012, Apple will find itself faced with multiple competitors such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft/Nokia, and Samsung across its most innovative products, the iPhone and iPad,’ Saxo Bank’s strategists write. ‘Apple will be unable to maintain its market share of 55 percent (three times as much as Android) and 66 percent on the iOS and iPad.’ As crazy as that prediction sounds, investors should keep in mind that Apple’s share price was slashed in half in 2008, as the stock fell from nearly $200 a share to below $100 during the financial crisis. If competition hits a fever pitch as Saxo Bank predicts, Apple’s profit margins could be crushed and future profit growth estimates would have to be ratcheted back.”
“Much like the way Texas billionaire Ross Perot feasted on the disgust Americans had with U.S. politics in 1992 to land nearly 19 percent of the popular vote, Saxo Bank strategists predict that a new political order will be born after a third-party candidate wins the presidency in November 2012 by taking 38 percent of the popular vote,” Holmes reports. “‘Going into the election in 2012, the incumbent Democrats are in ideological disarray and will get the blame for continued economic malaise and the favor-the-rich Republicans will never win the popular vote with the U.S. rich/poor gap at a record width and social tension rising,’ the strategists write. ‘In short, conditions for a third party candidate have never been riper. Someone smart enough to sense this and with a strong program for real change throws his hat in the ring early in 2012.'”
Eight more predictions in the full article here.