Well it is that time a year again so I'm looking back at my predictions for 2012 and seeing how I did.
Politics:
1. Yup Romney won the GOP nomination but Obama won the election. However Obama didn't win in a squeaker and actually won fairly convincingly. The GOP didn't win the Senate and it seems that not much will be done.
2. There was no real budget fight per se but the fight was over raising the debt ceiling instead. There was no real compromise and the thing was punted so we have the "fiscal cliff" now.
3. Obamacare actually was proved constitutional and it will scar the landscape for years to come. Missed this one.
4. No civil war in North Korea. It seems Kim-Jong-Un is consolidating power and firing off long range missiles. Missed this one.
5. Iran was hit hard by sanctions but there was no revolutions. It turned out that Syria was the place for the government to gun down its people. Although the UN is not stepping in at all due to Russia.
Economy:
1. Nailed this one. More green shoots plus a housing recovery with Europe taking more then its share of ink on its woeful situation. Missed high oil prices but nailed a slowdown in India and China. Worldwide growth also slowed in the second half of the year and parts of Europe did enter a recession.
2. The market was fairly decent and oil prices stayed fairly low. Also there was a rally of sorts after Obama was re-elected. Companies still hold vast cash reserves and the GDP is growing at only 1.7% at the end of the year and not at 3%. However, we avoided a recession for now.
3. Unemployment did stay in the 8% range and was slightly better by the end of the year.
4. Facebook's IPO was a debacle and may have a few lawsuits to settle before all the smoke clears. However, no "Facebook is dead" articles have been published yet. Whoops missed this one.
5. SOPA did indeed fail spectacularly.
6. Here are the numbers for the various indices that I predicted vs the actual numbers :
Dow: 12800 (13104)
NASDAQ: 2850 (3019)
S&P 500: 1320 (1320) Wow perfect guess!
Eur/Dollar: 0.98 (0.76)
10 Year Bond: 2.10% (1.76%)
Gold: $1310 an ounce ($1722 an ounce) Missed this one by a lot
Oil: $113 a barrel ($91 a barrel) This one too
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