Every year around the holidays, I’m reminded of the late, great Wall Street strategist Byron Wien’s annual “Ten Surprises” list, his contrarian takes on issues of the day published every new year. Always thoughtful and entertaining, Wien would lay out 10 scenarios he believed the average investor would consider improbable, but that he deemed more likely than not in the coming year.

The last and 38th edition of Wien’s list was published in January 2023, 10 months before he passed. I have missed his list, so I decided to compile my own this year, a humble tribute to the master.

Here are my 10 Surprises of 2026:

--Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo robotaxis launch in more U.S. cities. Adoption spikes and mounting data confirms that robots are safer than human drivers. Debates begin around the merits of outlawing human car drivers in city centers.

--Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s efforts to freeze rent in New York City are frustrated by big landlords. The city pivots to new construction and taxes on absentee owners, in expectation of which rents decline modestly.

--Excitement around a SpaceX initial public offering boosts the value of Elon Musk’s companies, including Tesla Inc., X, The Boring Company, Neuralink and xAI, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

--Despite President Donald Trump’s continued lobbying for lower interest rates, the Federal Reserve does not lower rates in 2026.

--The Supreme Court allows Trump’s tariffs to go forward with modest changes. The tariffs have no meaningful impact on inflation, either one time or ongoing.

--Bitcoin tests but does not exceed its October 2025 record high. Its rolling multi-year volatility continues to decline, raising hopes that it has finally matured into a store of value. A wave of Bitcoin-linked structured financial products are launched and successfully sold to baby boomers.

--The valuation of the U.S. stock market contracts, dampening concerns of a bubble in artificial intelligence. Lower valuations do not result from a sustained correction, as many fear, but from a combination of stagnant prices and earnings growth.

--Notwithstanding Trump’s peace efforts, the U.S. is pulled into conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. Rising sectarian tensions in Syria lead to de facto partition.

--Even though the federal budget deficit is well higher than 3% in fiscal year 2026, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield remains in a range of 4% to 5%, neither pressuring Congress for fiscal discipline nor providing mortgage rate relief to homebuyers.

--For the second year in a row, international stocks outpace those in the U.S. despite stronger fundamentals for U.S. companies, aided by a continuing slide in the U.S. dollar.

And here are my “also rans,” as Wien called them, the scenarios I think are likelier than most investors believe but not necessarily probable:

•The next Fed chair ramps up the central bank’s use of real-time data in interest rate decisions, further eroding the use and importance of traditional survey-based government data.

•The US lifts investment restrictions on Russia following a détente with Ukraine. Russia related asset prices soar.

•The Securities and Exchange Commission issues new regulations requiring companies to disclose a variety of information related to workers, notably compensation and turnover. It reveals that fewer workers earn a living wage than companies acknowledge but more than progressives fear.

If you enjoyed this list and want to see it again next year, let me know, along with some of your predictions for 2026. Happy new year!

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Nir Kaissar is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering markets. He is the founder of Unison Advisors, an asset management firm.

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