Yahoo Finance 10 predictions for 2024 — from Yahoo Finance readers
What will happen in 2024?
Nobody knows, obviously, yet investors will place bets based on best guesses, businesses will gamble on future trends, and pollsters will ask millions of Americans what they think is about to transpire.
So we asked the Yahoo Finance audience to join the club. SurveyMonkey, from Dec. 18 through Dec. 20, asked 3,848 YF users 10 multiple choice questions related to markets, the economy, and the 2024 elections — and one open-ended question asking what some of the surprises of 2024 might be.
We ran a similar survey one year ago, and the YF audience made some prescient calls.
One big thing our soothsayers got right: There would be a happy ending to 2023, with inflation falling and markets rising. They also predicted the electric vehicle revolution would stall, battered tech stocks would forge a comeback in 2023, and President Biden’s student debt relief plan would falter, all of which panned out. They erred by predicting surging gas prices, an end to the war in Ukraine, and the ascendence of Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidency.
Instead of taking predictions at face value, there might be more value in understanding what’s on people’s minds and whether they’re optimistic or pessimistic. In that light, here are 10 insights from what the Yahoo Finance audience anticipates in 2024.
Donald Trump will dominate people’s attention. In our open-ended question, “Trump” was the most common word or phrase, “Trump wins” was seventh, and “Donald Trump” was 10th. “Biden” came in eighth and “Joe Biden” 11th. Trump's mindshare is remarkable for two reasons. First, Trump is a challenger to the current president, not the president himself. And second, our open-ended prompt included no names, so we weren’t leading respondents to answer one way or the other.
Here’s the question we asked, followed by a word cloud depicting the answers:
“In your own words, what will be the biggest business, economic, or political surprise in 2024?”
Many of those references to Trump are negative. A qualitative review of the open-ended answers shows many respondents hope or expect Trump will be convicted of crimes in 2024, while losing the election or dropping out.
Voters want new presidential candidates. And they think (or hope) there will be some. When we asked who was likely to win the 2024 presidential election, Trump had the edge. But 34% answered “somebody else.”
Haleymania. Or at least, Haleyminia. In our open-ended question, 10 times as many respondents mentioned Nikki Haley as mentioned Ron DeSantis, the two Republican presidential candidates who are competing for second place after Trump. Again, our prompt included no names. People also mentioned Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California who is not running for president, but could if Biden dropped out for some reason. Newsom, interestingly, earned four times as many mentions as DeSantis.
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How about a woman president? One repeat answer to our open-ended question was that the United States would or should have a woman president for the first time in 2025. Most such responses didn’t specify who that would be, but some said they would relish an election between Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley.
Politics dominated our open-ended answers, but we made sure to ask about markets and the economy, too. There’s some good news.
Investors are pretty optimistic. Sixty-five percent of respondents think the S&P 500 stock index will rise in 2024, and 35% think it will rise by more than 10%. They're most optimistic about tech, which 36% think will be the best-performing sector. Energy is next, at 14%, followed by financials at 11%. Our respondents expect materials to be the worst-performing sector.
Sixty-five percent think the annual inflation rate will be less than 3% one year from now.
Seventy-four percent think the unemployment rate will be less than 4.5% this time next year.
And only 32% think there will be a recession, with 49% saying no recession.
Artificial intelligence is on people’s minds. “AI” was the second-most-common response in our open-ended question, after “Trump.” Pro-to-con references ran at roughly an even ratio. Bullish example: “AI LLMs [large language models] will progress in usability, capability and expand in subject matter at a faster pace than anyone thought.” Bearish example: “AI stocks will cannibalize themselves.”
Real estate prices will drop. Most people who mentioned housing and commercial real estate think prices will drop in 2024, but there’s debate about whether it will be a healthy correction or some kind of crash. One respondent split the difference: “Real estate won't be the market disaster as predicted.”
There’s still plenty to worry about:
More war. The word “war” was the third-most-common response to our open-ended question. Most of the forecasts were negative, a few apocalyptic. Worrisome example: “Low-yield nuclear bomb somewhere in the Middle East.” More upbeat: “War ends in Ukraine and Israel.”
China will cause trouble. The Yahoo Finance audience is concerned that China might try to invade Taiwan in 2024 or make a more formal alliance with Russia against the United States and NATO. But others note that China has its own problems and some respondents expect the Chinese economy to be even weaker in 2024 than in 2023.
Black swan events. “Putin is overthrown.” “The adoption of a 4-day workweek in the US.” “Trump flees to Europe.” “X (Twitter) will turn around.” “A politician will tell the truth.”
We'll report back a year from now on whether any politicians told the truth in 2024, or any of these other predictions came true.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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