5 shocking predictions for 2027 and beyond

Fund managers are not by nature big on crystal ball gazing, so what happens if you challenge them to make a shocking prediction at a big event?

The answer looks something like deep research and strong conviction in an idea that the market hasn’t given enough attention to. Think an expose on the frightening levels of government debt in the US, a halving in the value of Australia’s biggest bank, a rethinking of geopolitical headlines and two unexpected investment opportunities.

Even more shocking, the focus was not on AI – arguably old news in the face of the outlook these fund managers were watching.

Livewire Live 2026 asked back previous faces and new for 5 shocking predictions for 2027 and beyond:

• Dougal Maple-Brown, Head of Australian Value Equities, Maple-Brown Abbott
• Kellie Wood, Deputy Head of Multi-Asset and Fixed Income, Schroders
• Billy Leung, Investment Strategist, Global X
• Jay Sivapalan, Head of Australian Fixed Interest, Janus Henderson
• Ben Griffiths, Executive Chairman, Eley Griffiths Group

Prediction 1: Commonwealth Bank stock will halve

Speaker: Dougal Maple-Brown, Maple-Brown Abbott

Maple-Brown had initially planned to predict that CSL would double from its lows and Commonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA) would halve from its highs. In the space between writing and presenting, the first prediction came true – will he hit two for two?

Maple-Brown is not the first to suggest CBA is overvalued; after all, the big bank has been priced for perfection for some time.

“CBA peaked about a year ago at close to $200 a share,” he says, adding, “the valuation was unprecedented. At $190/share, CBA was trading at around 33x forward earnings and the most expensive bank in the world.”

At the time of presenting, the bank had fallen to $160/share, and as of writing, it has dipped below $150/share. Maple-Brown argues it could fall to $100/share.

“Major peers – Westpac, NAB and ANZ today are trading on 15x forward earnings. If CBA trades like its peers, I’ll be right. And by the way, ANZ and Westpac traded on 10x forward earnings only two and a half years ago, so it could be far worse,” he says.

Even aside from its peers, Maple-Brown points to the big banks' earnings outlook.

“Credit growth is slowing, costs are rising, credit losses are likely to rise (depending on how good your crystal ball is on property prices), and all of these hit earnings,” he says.

Maple-Brown Abbott is more underweight Australian banks today than at any other time in its 40-year history and is currently overweight healthcare.

Prediction 2: The return of bond equity diversification

Speaker: Kellie Wood, Schroders

Two years ago, Wood predicted a US sovereign debt default and argues that this still remains relevant.

“We have US debt currently at US$40 trillion, and every second, that level of debt is going up by US$10,000. An update on that prediction from two years ago is that the US does not need a crisis to engineer a debt spiral. All it needs now is a disappointment in growth,” Wood says.

She notes that this is the push beyond a future with a return to bond-equity diversification – and failing to have this diversification will hurt investors. It may seem like a bold call to investors who have watched increasing positive correlations in the past decade (including the painful point of early 2022 where both equities and bonds fell together).

“We are now dealing with the oil price shock. The inflation shock will mature and markets will start to focus on the downside risk to growth. In that environment, the 60/40 portfolio will mechanically start to perform. Bonds will be a better diversifier of equity risk and they will be that shock absorber they were once known for,” Wood argues.

She notes that money moves towards a story: AI, mega cap tech, gold, commodities, private equity and private credit are “very crowded with a great narrative.” 

Her approach is “duration-based fixed income to protect for the downside and diversified equities.” She is starting to see better value in public markets and notes that “high-quality duration-based fixed income will be the best-performing asset class when that correlation [between equities and bonds] starts to shift.”

Prediction 3: The next trillion dollar cohort of companies will be from China

Speaker: Billy Leung, Global X

Investors and markets have become complacent about US exceptionalism, with the Magnificent Seven seemingly proving the story. However, Leung reminds us that historically China has been dominant and is fast moving back as a dual economic power. The next trillion-dollar club will be Chinese.

“The next race or next competition globally is in artificial intelligence and China is making headwinds. China is playing catch up,” Leung says, highlighting spend and earnings between US companies and Chinese.

China has been investing in both capacity and self-sufficiency. While it has been raising prices, it is still offering products for a fraction of the cost of Western peers.

“Can China actually sustain this competitive edge? They’ve got the quality, they’ve got the talent, they’ve got the semiconductor scaling. 

They can, not just because they control all the rare earth materials – the critical materials that go into semiconductors, but they actually control the processing of all these rare earths,” Leung explains.

Leung reminds investors that investing in China is less about specific themes but investing in policies.

“You find what the government is supporting, and you invest in the policies,” he says.

“China wants to be the leader in semiconductors, wants to be the leader in infrastructure technology, the leader in AI cloud centres and the leader in robotics and EVs.”

The idea of China dominating the biggest global companies is far from a dream either; after all, between 2006 and 2020, Chinese companies were always in the top 10, such as Alibaba and Tencent. It’s only been in the last five years that there has been a shift, but this should be temporary – Leung points to names like Alibaba, CXMT and Xiaomi as already identified Chinese champions and just a few to watch.

Prediction 4: Now is a once-in-a-century opportunity to buy bonds

Speaker: Jay Sivapalan, Janus Henderson

“If you’re looking at the news flow that you’re seeing on screen, don’t believe everything you read or hear; look much deeper under the surface, and there’s an incredible opportunity that is arising out of fixed interest, but it’s coming from some strange places that you wouldn’t naturally be thinking about,” Sivapalan says.

On the surface, the idea of a bond opportunity and the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz may not seem linked. But Sivapalan argues we need to appreciate the deeper reasons for the conflict to see forward to future opportunities and he believes the conflict actually comes back to the ongoing tension for dominance between the US and China.

Who does an oil shock hurt most? Not the US, but China in its efforts for technological and economic dominance.

“If we look at where all the major wars have been over the last 50 years, it’s largely been centred around where energy has been, where oil has been. A lot of it is around the Middle East and a few other areas,” Sivapalan says.

“If we look forward, the next 50 years won’t be about oil. That’s not the secret sauce. It will be about a lot of the things that are occurring. The conflict will start shifting more and more towards the East. It is all around AI, chips, GPUs, rare minerals.”

US and China are both pushing for AI and tech dominance and the transition to a new world where this is completely integrated is expensive. It will also continue to drive inflation upwards.

“We’re in the expensive part of the transition, the inflation part,” says Sivapalan, “it means there will be very different winners and losers, both at an industry level, a country level and indeed a company level and that’s worth paying attention to.”

“One of the big byproducts of this is higher cash rates and higher bond yields, which we are already starting to see. 

Over time, what this will create, in my humble belief, is a once in a century opportunity for investors to buy fixed interest and bonds and get, over the next 30 years, very similar returns, if not better, than share markets.”

Prediction 5: Australia is on the cusp of the next gas boom

Speaker: Ben Griffiths, Eley Griffiths Group

We are approaching a substantial step-up in electricity demand, right at a point in time where Australia’s coal-powered plants are being retired at a fairly rapid rate, renewables are still being built out and we’ve failed to invest in gas.

Australia’s power consumption is tipped to increase by 50% by 2035. Data centres are just one aspect of demand, currently representing around 3% of power generated by grids and expected to hit 13% by 2035.

Based on 2025 data, 43% of electricity was coal-powered, 20% was solar, and 16% was gas.

Griffiths argues that “gas is the only viable and scalable base load fuel for our electricity generation needs” and we have failed to keep up with exploration to date.

“Among G10 nations, about a third of their electricity needs are sourced from gas. In Australia, as I mentioned before, we sit at a fairly lowly 16% of our electricity generation from gas,” Griffiths says.

Griffiths argues the key to reducing prices and managing electricity demand is a step up in supply – and that can only come from sourcing new supply of gas.

If you compare Australia with other countries, back in 2008, Australians paid substantially less than peers in the US and Canada for gas due to ready supply – we’ve flipped the switch as the US and Canada made a large discovery in the Monterey Formation in British Columbia.

“We have the geology, we know that. We have the infrastructure, it’s right before you and we have the expertise,” he says, pointing to Australia’s long history in gas drilling and pipelines. We are also facing into a gas crunch, with Gladstone and Darwin expected to be critically low by the mid-2030s, along with the Northwest Shelf.

Griffiths points to the Taroon trough in Queensland, the Beetaloo Basin in Northern Territory and the Bedout Basin in Western Australia to drive significant interest and exploration.

“There are a number of listed and unlisted players, and international and local players, each visually exploring and drilling with mixed results. The most exciting one, of course, at the moment seems to be the Beetaloo Basin where there is some serious international money hoping to find gas,” Griffiths says.

It’s the gas renaissance according to Griffiths – “Drill, baby, drill”.

Did these predictions shock you and will you shift your investments as a result? Let me know in the comments. For more from Livewire Live 2026, click here.