Forecasts
Future-facing editorials from The Daily Shallot. We make a call, show the pressure points, and tell you what would prove us wrong.
Lead forecast
Public grief is broad, bipartisan, and already official. The open question is which governor signs Dolly into law first and how firmly they insist it is “about literacy, not politics.”
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The Daily Shallot
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A running check on whether the crowd is actually smarter than the column.
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Forecasts still unfolding in public, corporate, and institutional reality.
Trump’s new sanctions blitz is aimed straight at Tehran’s last big customer. By early 2027, I expect China’s visible imports of Iranian crude to be materially lower than today and far below the pre-war binge, not because Trump defeats Iran, but because Beijing decides this fight is not worth a banking crisis.
Iran keeps the Strait of Hormuz on a hair trigger, oil keeps flirting with triple digits, and Kevin Warsh keeps discovering new ways to confuse bond traders. Yet by August 2027, the U.S. is more likely to be limping than officially in an Iran‑oil‑shock recession.
The bankers are whispering $2 trillion, the spreadsheets are screaming $42 billion in annual losses, and the public is being asked to anoint a five‑year‑old lab as a permanent mega‑cap. I am betting the trillion‑dollar crown does not stay on Anthropic’s head.
Meta just ran its free cash flow into the floorboards to feed the AI buildout. The next question is not “how big is the opportunity,” it is “which Big Tech board says uncle first in public.”
The consensus wants a grand bargain. The signal points to something duller and more dangerous: a normalized low-grade war that never quite ends and never quite explodes, even as the UN’s Lebanon buffer quietly times out.
The market just shaved $800 billion off the AI story. The hyperscalers are still ordering servers like it never happened. Something in that equation is going to give, and my money is on guidance, not GPUs.
Her story is catnip for trauma prestige and there is a memoir sitting on the shelf. The only real question is how much exploitation executives think audiences will tolerate in three years’ time.
My call: by mid‑December 2026, commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is still at or below 40% of prewar levels. The world gets corridor theater, not a real reopening.
HBM-fueled margins, a two-country AI arms race, and a structurally tight memory market are pulling Samsung’s semiconductor profits away from your smartphone upgrade cycle. The bet is simple: when Samsung prints full-year 2027, more than half of DS operating profit comes from AI data‑center products.
The stock is wobbling over a $370 billion AI leasing contraption and hyperscaler mood swings. The numbers say something simpler: if Broadcom misses a $20B AI quarter by 2027, the whole “$100B AI” story was marketing copy, not a roadmap.
Everyone is waiting for the ‘this is fine’ quarter when AI capex finally cools. The signals say August 26 is not that quarter.
The maps are ready, the corridor is drafted, and Oman is doing shuttle diplomacy cardio. But Tehran’s real negotiation is with Washington, not Muscat, and that is why the Strait of Hormuz stays mostly shut while everyone pretends to fine‑tune the GPS.
Wall Street is finally asking if the AI buildout is hitting real‑world limits: power, capex scrutiny, and dependence on one vendor. The next two Nvidia earnings reports are the test. I am betting the constraints bite later than the revenue does.
Decades of software law were built on the sacred ‘as‑is’ disclaimer. The EU AI Act calendar and a brewing US backlash against AI‑powered bugs are about to test whether AI‑written code still gets to hide behind it.
Forget the fantasy of “reopening” the Gulf. The real bet is whether Iran’s paper deals, Houthi theatrics, and a patchwork of gunboat security keep enough tankers moving to avoid a true supply shock. I am betting yes: constrained traffic, scary headlines, no multi‑week shutdown.
Everyone already believes AI is the future. The harder question is who will be shameless enough, early enough, to carve “AI revenue” out as a line item and brag that it hit 10% of the top line.
Breakout incidents, closed‑door White House summits, and global pressure make it look like hard AI law is just around the corner. The real signal is quieter: Washington is standardizing the performance of concern while keeping regulation optional.
The market just sprinted back to fresh highs on an AI sugar rush from Palantir, Caterpillar, and the hyperscalers, right as we enter the ugliest stretch of the calendar. I am betting the AI earnings fire is real enough that the tape survives August to October without surrendering its records.
Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia are promising a trillion‑dollar AI buildout and assuring everyone it will be fine. The math says at least one of them blinks once cash burn, slower growth, or rates remind boards who actually pays for the supercycle.
Everyone is gaming out a Saudi comeback tour in Yemen, this time with boots, tanks, and a redemption arc. The signal points somewhere less cinematic: more bombs and frigates, no Saudi brigade rolling into Houthi‑held territory by November 30, 2026.
Seven states hit, more than 30 Minnesota systems poked, tradecraft that looks very Iran-adjacent. Yet the smartest bet is that Washington spends the next two months talking about 'threat actors' and 'resilience' instead of saying the plain words: Iran did this.