Evidence from both macro data and market behavior shows 2024 looked more like a classic soft (or even no) landing with an unusually smooth equity rally, rather than the “bumpy landing” with destabilizing shocks that Sacks predicted.

On the macro side, multiple retrospectives describe 2024 as a successful U.S. soft landing: U.S. GDP grew about 2.8% in 2024 while inflation fell to roughly 2.9% by December and unemployment hovered near 4.1%, with no recession and only modest labor-market cooling. A Le Monde survey of global growth explicitly characterizes the U.S. outcome in 2024 as a soft landing under these conditions. (lemonde.fr) Mid‑year and late‑year assessments from forecasters such as S&P Global and ICIS similarly emphasized continued positive growth around 2.4–2.5% with easing inflation and no recession, i.e., a soft/no‑landing scenario rather than a volatile downturn. (spglobal.com)

Equity markets also did not behave as Sacks’s “bumpy” scenario implied. The S&P 500 delivered roughly 23–25% total returns in 2024, marking a second straight year of strong double‑digit gains. Cboe data show the index finished 2024 up 23.31%, while the FT calculates about 24.5% total return for the year. (cboe.com) At the same time, realized volatility was historically low: Bloomberg reports that the VIX averaged about 15.5 in 2024—its lowest annual average since 2019—even as the S&P 500 hit 51 all‑time highs, underscoring a steady, low‑volatility advance rather than a rally “undermined” by shocks. (news.bloomberglaw.com)

Because 2024 delivered (1) continued growth without recession, widely labeled a soft landing, and (2) a strong, relatively low‑volatility continuation of the late‑2023 equity rally, Sacks’s call for a distinctly “bumpy landing” that would derail or sharply destabilize that rally did not come to pass.