I’m starting a new prediction tracker page dedicated to tracking financial predictions made by so-called “experts.”
There are many so-called experts that make a very good living making predictions about where the market is going, how companies will perform, is oil going up or down, are we in a recession, is the housing market going to collapse, and anything else you can think of.
They’re on cable TV, print, and the internet 24 hours/day. It’s hard to miss them if you have functioning ears and eyes. Even if you’re trying.
I haven’t seen any studies, but my sense is they get it wrong as often as they get it right.
No matter how wrong they might be, no one ever bothers to check up (one exception is Jim Cramer, whose predictions are tracked rather thoroughly; see here and here).
It must be nice to have a job where it doesn’t matter how often you’re wrong.
The gravy train stops here!
I am going to unscientifically and haphazardly choose a non-random sample of expert predictions and track them to completion. Hopefully I will learn something about determining which predictions have predictive value.
At long last the experts’ feet are held to the proverbial fire!