Avoid the Yogi Berra trap: Don’t make predictions about the future in a topsy-turvy world

Put aside for a moment how long the truce between the US, Israel and Iran will last. And, if it does, how to estimate the huge backlog of ships and tankers waiting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz and how long this will take to clear.

There is plenty else where outcomes seem more binary than ever. Take the concerns about private credit markets and bets made by private equity giants. Is it containable, given the limits on redemption and withdrawals that would prevent a Silicon Valley Bank-style bank-run crisis? Or are second-order effects likely?

Last week, Blue Owl Capital, a large New York-based private credit and investment firm, reported that investors had sought to withdraw $5.4 billion from two of its premier funds in the first quarter. On Monday, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon warned that “losses on all leveraged lending will be higher than expected,” yet another broadside directed at private credit firms.

Then there is the dollar, a now perennial puzzle. Amid alarm at how long the Third Gulf War looks set to handicap the global economy, the dollar has—surprise—risen. This is despite non-US central banks having sold $82 billion worth of US Treasuries, as the Financial Times reported, after the war of choice started. That sell-off, it turns out, was offset not just by rising dollar demand as oil prices rose, but also by long Treasury positions held by hedge funds.

As large as the hedge fund industry is, the dollar’s strength in March was mystifying.

This week, a former Pentagon budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute estimated that five weeks of war against Iran has cost the US government $22-31 billion. In addition, something in the order of $10 trillion in Treasuries needs to be rolled over in 2026. Confidence in the US and its erratic administration will be tested.

Meanwhile, another surprise: gold prices have mostly fallen in the wake of the war. This last nugget cheered me considerably. Even a fraction of money tied up in gold would grease the wheels of the economy if it were freed up. But part of the reason for my delight in gold’s seemingly inexorable rise coming to a halt is that I opted not to buy gold ETFs more than a year ago. I thought it was medieval. Now, I feel just a little less foolish.

Chastened, I am looking to take a punt on precious metals by buying a large silver teapot. My rationale is that it will at least be a calming device to counter the roller-coaster volatility in equity shares I expect in the year or two ahead. Besides, the Art Deco teapot I inherited is hard to get tea leaves out of, a case of stylish form winning over substance.

All this strikes me as a shamefully Marie Antoinettesque approach to a world in turmoil. Just weeks ago, for instance, many predicted fertilizer shortages and worried where food prices were headed. Yet, recent reports from agricultural mandis show that vegetable demand has dropped and prices are crashing.

It has been a little over a year since the Trump administration’s arbitrary tariffs were announced, prompting many economists to predict that prices in the US would rise sharply and its economy would be hard hit. Instead, its GDP growth chugged along at around 2.1% in 2025, with investment in data centres and AI being credited for it.

Many predicted that US retailers would significantly raise prices after those tariffs were imposed.

I was in two minds because from 2010 to 2013, I had been in and out of factories in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, the world’s most dynamic factory floor. Part of my reporting took me to the Guangzhou Trade Fair. Eavesdropping on conversations between buyers and suppliers there made me gasp at how fat most retail margins were, notably in the US.

So, it was not entirely a surprise that retailers reduced their plump margins and price rises in the US were consequently more muted than expected.

Having watched how our South Asian neighbours have benefitted from a glut in Chinese solar panels, I decided I would use the fog of war to prod my resident welfare association into installing some. I argued that solar energy would mean the housing complex could use a clean source instead of diesel when generators were needed. As so often happens with efforts on pollution, this email was met with… silence.

I worry about supply chain disruptions. The Gulf War has lasted far longer than leaders of Israel and the US had bargained for and the current break in hostilities seems somewhat tenuous. On the home front, I am, belatedly and unoriginally, trying to get on a waiting list for an induction stove.

At work, I am proposing a unilateral, one-man ceasefire on making predictions as a columnist. I will adopt the late Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s long-view approach. Asked about the impact of the French Revolution in 1789, he famously replied that it was too early to say.

The author is a former Financial Times foreign correspondent.