Graham Bentley: Profs no better than journos in forecasting the future

Mostly they'll be wrong

clock • 4 min read

A New Year is the catalyst for some of us credited with the faintest whiff of investment nous to pontificate on a 2016 stock market outlook. But Graham Bentley believes that given our track record, we really shouldn't bother...

At the various investment committees I will attend, my peers will sagely refer to charts and data, opining on the investment year ahead. Mostly they'll be wrong, of course. We believe that more information leads to more accurate forecasts, and hence better decisions.The evidence, however suggests ‘experts' are overconfident regarding their ability to forecast. Research (1) demonstrates that experts' confidence in their forecasting rises in line with the amount of information available, and yet the accuracy falls. Predictions rely on information that is for the most part "noise". ...

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