- January 3, 2026
- Posted by: Tresmark
- Categories:
Before the Rumble in the Jungle, the conclusion was unanimous. Muhammad Ali was walking into a disaster. George Foreman was younger, stronger, unbeaten, and knocking out elite fighters before the 3rd round. Every model, every expert, every oddsmaker said the same thing.
Ali disagreed.
What made it unsettling was not that he predicted a win. Fighters do that all the time. Ali described how the fight would unfold. He spoke about Foreman’s impatience, his need to dominate early, the way power fades when control slips. He spoke about letting the storm pass, about letting strength turn into exhaustion. He was reading behaviour.
Ali was not forecasting an outcome. He was diagnosing a condition.
When the fight played out, it followed Ali’s logic, not the market’s. Foreman lost because the regime of the fight turned against him.
That insight is as relevant to finance as it is to sports. Over the past year, our focus has been on behaviour, direction, regime, and policy response, rather than point forecasts.
A look back: Did the framework hold?
As the year draws to a close, it is worth briefly revisiting how some of the key base cases outlined in earlier client notes evolved versus outcomes. Markets are noisy and point forecasts will always have error. The objective is simpler: did the underlying framework used to interpret markets remain valid?
On balance, it did. What we flagged vs what played out
USD/PKR (Dec ’24)
* Call: PKR to stay stable; SBP buying excess dollars; resistance at 280.50
* Outcome: PKR range-bound, reserves improved
INR (Jan ’25)
* Call: INR to weaken beyond 90/$
* Outcome: Crossed 90/$
EUR/USD (Mar ’25)
* Call: Strength on CBs reserve diversification
* Outcome: EUR +13% vs USD
Gold (Mar ’25)
* Call: Gold to cross $4,200
* Outcome: Crossed & sustained
SBP Reserves (Jun ’25)
* Call: ~$16bn via FX buying
* Outcome: Closed near $15.9bn
PKR Swaps (Mid ’25)
* Call: Swaps to firm
* Outcome: Did not materialise
Silver (Sep ’25)
* Call: Silver to cross $55 on ratio
* Outcome: Exceeded
KSE-100 (Sep ’25)
* Call: Extension toward 170k
* Outcome: Index surpassed 170k
Rotation to Watch
Fading Themes | Emerging Themes
* 2025 | 2026
* USD | Gold & Silver
* Oil | Copper
* GBP | EUR
* INR | JPY
* Exports | Remittances
* Eurobonds | Panda bonds
* Stability | Normalisation
* USD dem debt | Local debt
* Reserve burn | accumulation
* One-way FX bets | Managed volatility
Earlier projections made for 2026
Instrument | Base | Bull
* Gold | 5,200 | 6,200
* USD Index | 92 | 98
* USDPKR | 288 | 297
The common thread across these calls is not precision, but discipline, recognising regime shifts, policy constraints, and enforcement capacity. As Pakistan and global markets move from crisis management toward normalisation, the nature of forecasting also changes. The objective of projections is not to predict every move, but to remain aligned with the regimes that govern them.
