On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 12:34 PM, John Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > >> >> Of course it is! All sorts of people predict all sorts of things. The >> only ones worth listening to are the ones who have a track record of >> being consistently right. > > > If that were true, no market research company would be in business.
The "market research" that I have seen has never had a good record. I would certainly not spend any of my money on it, unless it was just a way of keeping track of what is trendy. > I'd imagine that no long-term forecaster of any kind would be in business. Depending on what you mean by long-term (10 years or more?), then I would probably agree that there are no long-term forecasters with a good record. > I know a little bit about forecasting... I co-founded and ran a successful > market research firm and I have patents for methods of forecasting markets. > > Do you have any credentials or examples to cite that would support your > notion that we should only listen to people who are right all the time? LOL. I certainly wouldn't pay for your forecasts! You didn't even forecast your own house price decline. You want a pissing contest, do you? Since I don't register my predictions, and I doubt you have either, the only thing I can think of is how good we have been at predicting the financial markets, based on our investment returns. How would you like to compare investment returns? I think I am much younger than you, so I only have 6 years of returns, but I have outperformed the major indices by a statistically significant amount over that time. I'm even positive YTD, which puts me well above the 90th percentile this year. If you are interested, feel free to post your investment returns during the last 6 years, and I will do the same. > The value in long-term forecasting is not so much the forecast as the > thinking behind it. In little-league, they always used to tell us that winning wasn't important, just having fun. We didn't win much. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
