BREAKINGVIEWS-The Week in Breakingviews: Back with a bang

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Peter Thal Larsen

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Happy New Year! Breakingviews columnists have published their predictions for 2026. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. troops was not one of them. What else did we miss? Email me with your thoughts. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here to receive it free in your inbox every Saturday.

OPENING LINE

“The investing pendulum has now swung fully from championing social causes to decidedly antisocial behavior.”

Read more: Grok deepfakes expose limits of investor morality.

FIVE THINGS I LEARNED FROM BREAKINGVIEWS THIS WEEK

1. China generated twice as much electricity as the United States in 2024.

2. Robinhood HOOD.O CEO Vlad Tenev’s stake in the online broker gained more than $3 billion last year.

3. Newly listed Chinese AI startup Zhipu’s R&D bill is eight times its revenue.

4. Greenland has 25 of the EU’s 34 designated critical raw materials, but negligible mining.

5. Ozempic in India costs just a fifth of what users pay for the weight-loss drug in the U.S.

ANOTHER CLICK IN THE HAUL

What surprising things will happen in the next 12 months? That’s the question Breakingviews columnists debate every autumn when they brainstorm scenarios for the year ahead. The process that started with scribbles on a whiteboard came full circle this week with the publication of “Far Side of the Boom”, our predictions for 2026. (Register here to download the e-book.)

The title sums up the anxious optimism that surrounds the world economy and financial markets heading into the new year. On the one hand, economic activity and asset values once again proved resilient in the face of the shocks unleashed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office. On the other, growth and investment are heavily reliant on ongoing exuberance about the transformative potential of artificial intelligence.

One of our boldest predictions is that greed will overcome fear to produce the world’s largest-ever M&A deal. Soaring animal spirits in 2025 spawned the ongoing bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery and the $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and this week revived the on-off merger talks between mining giants Rio Tinto RIO.AX and Glencore GLEN.L. Yet the two largest transactions of all time were struck a quarter century ago by telecom titan Vodafone and erstwhile internet pioneer America Online. Expect those records to fall in 2026.

The AI frenzy is another focal point. In 2025 the debate centred on the vast investments made by tech giants like Microsoft MSFT.O and Meta Platforms META.O. Those companies face a moment of truth in 2026, as they try to persuade corporations and consumers to pay for the productivity-enhancing features of large language models, and their vast energy needs. The bill for the industry’s relaxed attitude to copyright will also come due. The technological and social impact of self-teaching computers will continue to spread: look out for chatbots that respond to voice prompts, open-standard AI chips, and for the growing automation of white-collar jobs to devalue college degrees. And if the boom fizzles, creative entrepreneurs may find other uses for those data centres.

Trump remains highly unpredictable, as he reminded us again this week. Even so, our columnists nailed their colours to the mast. Whoever the president chooses to chair the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be pulling the central bank’s strings. Increased state meddling in private business will prompt the government to take a stake in Boeing BA.N. And if cryptocurrencies get into trouble, the Trump administration has the motivation and means to bail out holders of the digital tokens.

As always, the purpose of making predictions is not to be 100% accurate, but to give readers a provocative and hopefully entertaining way of pondering what might happen in the year ahead. Either way, Breakingviews columnists will do it all again next autumn.

CHART OF THE WEEK

There are lies, damned lies, and estimates of oil reserves. Trump this week talked up the promise of Venezuela’s untapped hoard of the black stuff – supposedly the largest in the world – after ordering the arrest of the South American country’s president. On closer examination, Robert Cyran has his doubts. Getting the oil out of the ground is another challenge: Yawen Chen reckons U.S. giants like Chevron CVX.N and ConocoPhillips COP.N will be able to name their terms. Will the subterranean stockpile bring riches to holders of Venezuelan debt? Only if the price of oil rises, argues Jon Sindreu.

THE WEEK IN PODCASTS

In this week’s Viewsroom, Liam Proud and Jennifer Saba gave Aimee Donnellan and Jonathan Guilford a behind-the-scenes look at how Breakingviews columnists came up with this year’s crop of predictions, while picking out their favourites. Come for the financial insights, and stay for the extended late-night house party metaphor.

PARTING SHOT

Until this week, I hadn’t given much thought to the economics of drone warfare. Yet the seemingly simple observation in George Hay’s column – that the cost of shooting down an unmanned aircraft should be lower than the cost of making it – has far-reaching implications. As the European Union and NATO race to build a “drone wall” to counter an impending threat from Russia, the economic challenge is increasingly urgent.

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(Editing by Liam Proud; Production by Oliver Taslic)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on LARSEN/peter.thal.larsen@thomsonreuters.com))