Want To Be A Successful Investor? Don’t Rely On Forecasts

“Frankly the three blind mice have more credibility than any macro-forecaster at seeing what is coming,” noted James Montier in a research paper published back in 2010. Montier arrived at this conclusion after considering the evidence on the accuracy of market forecasters (more specifically the US analyst community) between 2001 and 2006. Over this period, data show that the average forecasting error in the US analyst community between 2001 and 2006 was 47% over 12 months and 93% over 24 months. To put another way, during this period considered analysts’ forecasts were almost sure to be incorrect over a period…