Saxo Bank made headlines last year with a bold call that Nvidia would surge — though that wasn’t the only eye-catching prediction in their annual list of “outrageous forecasts.”
One forecast claimed President Donald Trump would send the U.S. dollar reeling through tariff fights and political drama. With the DXY down 8% and on track for its worst performance since 2017, rising deficits and concerns over Fed independence have fueled an early-year slump.
Another call — that Nvidia would grow to twice the size of Apple — didn’t play out exactly as projected, but Nvidia still edged ahead. The chipmaker now sits at $4.37 trillion in market value, slightly above Apple’s $4.18 trillion after a 34% rally.
Now attention shifts to Saxo Bank’s 2026 “outrageous forecasts,” starting with a chilling scenario: a quantum computer cracks the most widely used digital encryption far sooner than expected. “Overnight, the promise that our emails, bank transfers, crypto wallets and corporate systems are safely encrypted no longer holds,” writes strategist Neil Wilson.
Panic hits crypto first, then ripples through traditional finance. Investors flee to safe havens, sending silver and gold toward a staggering $10,000. Quantum-computing stocks like IBM, cybersecurity firms, and crypto markets experience extreme volatility.
Winners include secure physical vaults, new cybersecurity players offering “unbreakable locks,” and traditional banks with strong cash-handling systems. Losers: public crypto, firms with weak security, and internet-connected crypto wallets.
Another dramatic scenario: China reveals audited gold reserves large enough to surpass the U.S. and introduces a partially gold-backed offshore yuan. Holders of the new “golden yuan” can redeem it for physical gold, boosting the currency and undermining the dollar.
China then builds a new Asia-centered global monetary framework, offering gold-for-yuan swap lines to Gulf oil producers and Southeast Asian central banks. Gold surges above $6,000, the offshore yuan strengthens below 5.0, foreign selling pressures U.S. bonds, and the dollar’s dominance fractures.
Saxo Bank also envisions an AI-driven crisis. In this scenario, agentic AI systems run most business operations until cascading glitches create chaos — a rogue algorithm sparks a flash crash, AI-powered accounting errors surface across industries, and faulty robot commands lead to factory fatalities.
The fallout is massive. A trillion-dollar cleanup boosts revenues for cybersecurity, audit, and consulting firms tasked with stabilizing and securing codebases. Highly autonomous AI platforms face valuation pressure, and investors rotate toward companies emphasizing resilience, oversight and human supervision.
Other standout predictions from Saxo Bank include:
- A Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce wedding that “saves” the global economy
- Peaceful 2026 U.S. midterm elections ushering in a wave of unity and civility
- Widespread use of obesity drugs — even for pets
- A SpaceX IPO
- A Fortune 500 company appointing an AI model as CEO
