With the year rapidly drawing to a close, the team at Informed Choice have been turning their attention to 2014.
It is set to be another busy year.
January will see Latvia officially adopt the euro currency, becoming the eighteenth country in the Eurozone.
The Winter Olympics are being held in Sochi, Russia in February, followed by the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil starting in June.
In China, the Sun City skyscraper is scheduled for completion in the summer, becoming the new tallest building in the world (beating the current record holder in Dubai by 33ft).
Closer to home we have an independence referendum taking place in Scotland on 18th September, with all sorts of implications for both countries regardless of the outcome.
One event which caught our eye was the predicted end of Moore’s Law at some point in 2014, as a result of economic constraints.
Moore’s Law is the observation that computing power approximately doubles every two years, resulting in cheaper and more powerful computers.
With all of this going on, pinning down the Informed Choice team for their own predictions proved harder than expected.
Nick was reluctant to make predictions, instead saying it is better to take actions based on your view of the world.
He believes England stands a better chance of winning the World Cup in 2014 than either Scotland or Wales, and hopes they do (but predicts they will not).
He also predicts that Scotland will vote for English independence (which is one way of looking at it) and that NASA will further confirm Hubble’s Law once their New Horizon spacecraft crosses the orbit of Neptune in August.
Andy went as far as predicting there will be growth in the spring!
She also doesn’t believe in making predictions, although she is looking forward to 2014 and believes it will be a good year in all sorts of different ways.
As we have all come to learn over the years, Andy is usually right about these things.
Our resident fan of MotoGP, Lizanne, is predicting that Valentino Rossi will announce his retirement in 2014.
She even has the number 46 plastered across her Fiat 500, but concedes we all knew the time would come when the GOAT (God of All Time) would start to fade in the light of someone like Marc Marquez.
While she writes this there is still a glimmer of hope in her heart that she will be proved wrong and this master tactician will win yet another championship.
Lizanne says the Moto GP just won’t be the same without him.
Andrew has made a whole raft of predictions for 2014, including the FTSE 100 index of leading UK company shares ending the year at around 7,100 points, CPI price inflation rising to above 2.5% and the UK economy continuing to grow (by 2.5% for the year).
He also predicts that Germany will win the World Cup, Man City will win the Premier League and Everton will win the FA Cup.
Also on a sporting theme, Andrew predicts Wales will win the Six Nations, Novak Djokovic will win Wimbledon (beating Murray in the final) and Tiger Woods will win the US Masters.
Andrew concludes by predicting that the UK will experience a BBQ summer.
With a series of distinctly non-sporting themes, Martin predicts more Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in 2014 with inflated share prices which bewilder most rational observers.
He predicts 2014 will see the emerging market economies, including China, scale back their ambitions for growth and the economic focus shift (for a while, at least) to developed western nations, particularly the US.
Martin also predicts that the government will continue tinkering with the rules associated with long-term savings, complicating things for consumers and discouraging many from saving for the future.
Our predictions for 2014 are concluded with Shelley who thinks everything will be the same next year; many of the same issues, the same speculation about pensions tax-free cash, same debate about charges, same ‘rip-off’ stories in the press about people who don’t understand pensions.
She also happily predicts she will pass the final exams she needs to become a Chartered Financial Planner!
What are your predictions for 2014?
We wish you a very happy New Year and a prosperous 2014, whatever it is you have in store.
