Bitcoin to $200,000k anyone? Sterling to crash? The US dollar to 20 year highs? As for silver …

OK, folks. It’s predictions time.

As ever, the eternal conflict applies: the more outlandish the prediction, the more entertaining it is to read about - but the less likely it is to actually happen.

On these pages, we attempt to strike a balance.

Here are 15 things to look out for in 2025.

Here is a video version of this article, if you prefer:

1. The long overdue correction in the UK housing market finally begins.

“Record Boxing Day bounce,” says Rightmove. Read beyond the headline and you get this: “Our data shows a 26% increase in the number of new properties listed for sale compared to Boxing Day 2023, which previously held the record.” They’re trying to spin more sellers.

More sellers means more supply.

Meanwhile… houses are overpriced. The economy is not booming, so people have less money. Labour’s higher taxes also mean buyers have less capital to spend. Higher mortgage rates mean there is less money to borrow, and, thus, less newly created money to come into the market and prop up prices.

The rich are not coming to Britain - they are leaving, if they haven’t already left.

More supply of houses, but less money to buy them with.

Meanwhile, stamp duty is a massive deterrent to buyers. Never mind people choosing not to move because of it, anyone buying a second or third home - they’re as good as gone: who is going to pay 5% stamp duty for a second or third home? Not many people, I wouldn’t have thought.

More supply, less money, fewer buyers.

Then there is the general perception of the economy. Psychologically, people are not feeling rich, nor are they bullish about the economy, meaning fewer people will take the plunge.

What about investment from overseas?

See my earlier comment about stamp duty. The cost of buying drives away investment.

Moreover, the UK is not currently well looked upon. Rich Americans, for example (normally a good source of buyers), are not going to pile in given, one, the costs of buying and, two, how the UK is currently perceived over there.

Then Labour are going to loosen planning laws and build a whole load more houses - well, they say they are - meaning even more supply.

As if that wasn’t enough, 2026 is the year the 18-year-cycle in property turns down.

If houses don’t turn down this year, I’ll declare this market permanently immune.

2. Keir Starmer survives

His premiership is already looking dicey. It’s one crisis after another, and it’s difficult to see how he survives, especially with all the rape gang stuff.

However, I think short-term PMs became a bit normalised in the Cameron-May-Johnson-Truss-Sunak era. Cameron went because of Brexit. May went for the same reason. Johnson got his landslide, handed to him by Farage, but then Covid came along, and Johnson, under a lot of pressure from the Left, got the shove from Tory MPs with whom he was never particularly popular anyway, worried about their seats. Not having been elected, Truss and Sunak were toast before they even started.

None of that applies to Starmer. I admit he is looking shaky, particularly under this extraordinary pressure from Elon Musk. But I still think it’s too early for Labour MPs, worrying about their seats, to give him the shove, and it’s normal for a PM to last the full term - what happened under the Idiots Tories was not normal - so somehow Starmer survives the year.

3. Gold hits $3,000.

I’m not wildly bullish about gold at the moment, at least in US dollar terms, though I still think it is absolutely essential you own some. One, because at some point the China gold story is going to hit the mainstream, and suddenly there will be a scramble for gold. It probably won’t be this year, but you never know, and gold is one particular lifeboat you want to have ready in advance.

Second, if you are in the UK, I think sterling has problems - more on this in a moment - and your wealth is much better stored in shiny yellow metal than it is in British government digital stuff. (You would normally say British government paper, but it isn’t paper anymore).

On which note, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.

And

If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here.

$3,000 - landmark number though it is - is only 12.5% higher than where we are. We could easily see that by June.

4. Microstrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) becomes a top 100 company by market cap.

Currently, Deutsche Telecom (market cap US$145 bn) is 100th. Microstrategy is $85 billion at time of writing. It joins the elite. What a pick this has been for readers.

5. Bitcoin …

I was in Miami on New Year’s Eve at Michael Saylor’s - strictly on reconnaissance, of course - and one thing I learned there was that roughly half of corporate donations during the 2024 Presidential Election - $245m according to the Federal Election Commission - came from the crypto industry. Coinbase alone contributed $75 million.

I’m a beneficiary, so I’m not complaining, but, really, you have to say, buying such favour is more than a little dodgy, even if that is how the world works and has almost always worked.

But it means the likelihood of the Republicans delivering on their pledge for a strategic bitcoin reserve is likely.

The US isn’t going to buy a million coins straight away, but it may well buy 3-400,000 in year one. That sends bitcoin a lot higher.

The prediction?

It goes to $200,000 then crashes.But then it crashes. Cos that’s always what happens.

6. Sterling has big problems.

We spend too much. We make too little. We have an incompetent Chancellor, who is something of a stranger to the truth. We have too much unpayable debt. We are on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

My eight-year cycle has turned down. This is the year it hits the skids.

A sterling crisis will hurt house prices too.

7. X thrives, Blue Sky dies, Blogging Blue Skies

Blue Sky is just a left-wing tantrum, same as Parler and Gettr, a few years back, were right-wing tantrums. It won’t last. People gravitate to where speech is freest - with a little bit of large network thrown in. I am a huge, huge Elon Musk fan. I think he is a force for immense good (finally, the rape gang story is getting the attention it deserves), though perhaps the algorithms have made Twitter/X a little too much the Elon show. Nevertheless, Twitter/X is highly addictive, it is wher...