Six-Chart Sunday – Nobody Knows Nuthin’ (Spring 2026)

6 Infographics + 1 Video (Roger Federer on grit, perseverance & winning)

A recurring 6CS theme… “nobody knows nuthin’ about anything.” (See previous editions in Fall 2024 & Summer 2025). Everybody’s got a theory, but in reality, nobody knows. Here’s six recent doozies.

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1. Expect a calmer 2026, they said…

Quoth the mavens: “2026 Will Be the Year American Politics Finally Returns to Normal.”

Reality: The first quarter of 2026 has been one hell of a decade.

2. Buy gold, they said…

Quoth the mavens: Bullion is “a classic safe haven during periods of economic and political uncertainty.”

Reality: “If gold is a safe haven and inflation hedge, why is it falling hard amid war and inflation fears?” (Fisher Investments) (Robin Brooks unpacks the question smartly).

3. Go to college & study computers, they said…

Quoth the mavens: “Coding is an essential skill and [we] believe it should be offered by every school in the world.” (Tim Cook, 2018)

Reality: “Inflation-adjusted average starting salar[ies] for college graduates… have plummeted -24% in real terms since the ~$71,000 peak seen in 2021.” Meanwhile computer programming jobs are the #1 “most exposed to AI” per Anthropic.

4. Sell America, they said…

Quoth the Mavens: “Sell America Is the New Trade on Wall Street” (NYT, Jan. 26, 2026).

Reality: “Foreign ownership of US assets has never been higher: Global holdings of US financial assets jumped +13.6% YoY in Q3 2025, to a record $64.1 trillion.”

5. Americans rally around the President at war times, they said…

Quoth the mavens: “The United States had a historic showing at the Winter Olympics. This year is the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. And we are at war. In normal times, each would summon national pride and unity. But they’re happening together — the rally-around-the-flag effect should be supercharged.”

Reality: “The historical record shows [the rally-round-the-flag effect] is more fragile than the conventional understanding... Genuinely large rallies are rare, and many of the smaller ones are confounded or ambiguous.”

6. Bet Longhorns or Nittany Lions, they said…

Quoth the mavens:

Reality: Preseason #20 Indiana faced preseason #10 Miami in the national title game, with the Hoosiers defying 100-to-1 preseason odds to finish the season 16-0 by winning their first-ever national title! Nobody knows nuthin’.

BY CONTRAST…

Somebody Knew Somethin’…

“Traders bet hundreds of millions of dollars on oil contracts just minutes before US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that the US would postpone strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure.” (BBC) Axios describes this as the latest in “an epidemic of suspicious trading… around President Trump’s most consequential decisions.”

VIDEO

Tennis great Roger Federer spoke to Dartmouth graduates in 2024: “In tennis, perfection is impossible... In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches... Now, I have a question for all of you... what percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches?

Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. You teach yourself to think: OK, I double-faulted. It’s only a point…

The best in the world are not the best because they win every point... It’s because they know they’ll lose... again and again… and have learned how to deal with it. You accept it. Cry it out if you need to... then force a smile. You move on. Be relentless. Adapt and grow. Work harder. Work smarter.”