belikewater

PLA vessels and aircraft came up to but likely did not cross the 24-nautical-mile line around the main island of Taiwan during China's Justice Mission 2025 exercises in December 2025. However, missiles did land within 24 nautical miles of Taiwan. Taiwan defines the 24 nautical miles around the island as its contiguous zone, and so far, PLA vessels and aircraft keep pushing up to but have not yet crossed that line. The Dec 2025 exercises were the largest to date and the sixth since 2022. 

Here is a list of recent major exercises:

August, 2022
April, 2023
April, 2024
October, 2024
April, 2025
December, 2025

There have been smaller exercises as well.

The large-scale exercises have been getting larger and increasingly more brazen, and two major exercises per year are becoming the norm. April seems to be a popular month, as well. And as missiles landed within Taiwan's contiguous zone in December, I would expect the same to happen in the next major exercises as well. I expect these exercises to continue to ramp up in pressure. US INDOPAC commander Adm. Paparo has noted that Chinese exercises are increasingly so expansive that the pretense of an exercise could be used as a fig leaf for an invasion.

I'm sure 2026 will see at least 2-3 major PLA exercises and probably a few lesser ones. The forecast period is 6 months, and therefore if we expect 2 exercises to happen randomly per year, the forecast should be 63%, or for 3 exercises per year, 78%. I'd give it a ~20% chance that we'll see 3 major exercises in 2026, though. But we've seen major exercises in April for the last 3 years, so I think we'll probably see another one this year around April, notwithstanding PLA leadership changes that are occurring.

adjusting closer to the crowd's forecast

Repeating my forecast. Another negative data point for December: the percentage of home purchases that were canceled in December was a record high since at least 2017.
https://x.com/charliebilello/status/2015826785728868388

I'm repeating my forecast. I'll just note that the difference November's and October's values of the index is lower this year than last year. Apart from the historical patterns mentioned in my previous forecasts, which suggest to me that next year's peak is likely to be lower than this year's peak, just eyeballing the current trend suggests to me that the difference between next year's peak and this year's will be less than the difference between this year's peak and last year's. So at a minimum, we are seeing a declining trend. And That would require even greater growth from 2026's to 2027's peak that was seen from 2023's to 2024's peak for this question to resolve to yes. And barring some very large, positive shock for the housing market, or giant inflation, I just don't see a world in which that is likely to happen. December housing market trends that I discussed in my last forecast  don't portend well for the housing market, either. I expect the Dec value to be in the ballpark of 327.554 ± 0.1, but maybe lower.

My forecast has been at 10% since my first forecast on Oct. 1. To me, the signal is clear. Barring some giant change, this will almost certainly resolve to no. The only reason my forecast is so high is because giant changes have been happening very frequently lately. The crowd's forecast has come down steadily to 50% now.

I'm repeating my forecast. I think this question should have included countries in and around the Horn of Africa, because that is currently a very important location where tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE are playing out. In any case, Somalia and Qatar have just signed a security agreement, and reportedly, Saudi Arabia is looking to sign one with Somalia and Egypt. So I wouldn't be surprised if Somalia, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia sign some joint security agreement in the relatively near future. But that won't be enough countries for this question. 

The contract I thought had qualified didn't. h/t @DimaKlenchin 

I think this contract for Apache helicopters for Poland might be a second contract that satisfies this question. I'm suggesting resolution of this question to yes.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-wins-47-billion-foreign-military-contract-ah-64e-apache-helicopters-2025-11-26/

I'm repeating my forecast to note that while Trump's 10% rate cap on credit cards appears to be fading away, Redfin reported yesterday that sellers outnumbered buyers by a record margin in December since records started in 2013, as both buyers and sellers leave the market. All else equal, that will push home prices down.

https://www.redfin.com/news/buyers-vs-sellers-december-2025/

In addition, the Trump administration's pursuit of Greenland is now pushing mortgage rates higher as fears of conflict are increasing Treasury yields. It remains to be seen where that situation will go, but so far, Trump and his administration seem to be pushing hard to acquire Greenland. I think a push to acquire Greenland by any means is likely to push mortgage rates higher than they would be otherwise, and even if Trump completely backed off his bid to acquire Greenland today, I think markets would still be jittery. So, I expect the push for Greenland to keep mortgage rates at least somewhat higher than they would be otherwise over at least the next few months, and that will push at least a few buyers out of the market.

Also, the demand trend in the market has been downward for years. The number of buyers is just over half what it was in 2013 (and at peaks in 2016, 2020 and 2021 at around the same value). In addition, the percentage by which sellers exceeds buyers has been climbing steadily since Dec 2023. While the index has continued to grow while this disparity between buyers and sellers has increased, at some point, that growth cannot likely continue. At a minimum, the extent to which the national housing market is a buyer's market exerts some downward pressure on home prices and hence on the Case-Shiller index.

As before, I think it would require a very large market disturbance, on the scale of Covid, and one that would push prices up rather than down, for this question to resolve to yes.