Reflecting on 2013 while looking ahead to 2014

WHEN people ask Breakingviews editors how our past predictions panned out, we have a simple response: "We nailed a few, missed a couple - but they were all interesting." Consider that the guiding philosophy for our annual attempt at agenda-setting financial foresight.

We do expect to get a few key prognostications right. A year ago, we argued that US stocks would best the rest of the world. Bingo. We said that central banks would need to fight to retain their independence from politicians. Look no further than the summer's public tussle over who should lead the US Federal Reserve. We also predicted the Japanese yen would crest above the three-digit mark against the dollar: domo arigato Kuroda-san.

Not all of our views hit the mark. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse are still led by chief executives whose tenures we thought might come to an end in 2013. George Osborne still reigns as the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer despite our scepticism a year ago. And while we predicted that a great American newspaper would change hands in 2013, we should have opted for The Washington Post, which was sold to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, over The New York Times.