, Columnist
2019 Forecast: Predictions Will Be Wrong, Random or Worse
Every year, the prognosticators come out of hiding. You have to wonder why they bother, given their record.
I’m getting a “sell” message from beyond. No, it’s a “buy.”
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This is the time of year for annual reckonings and predictions by strategists and analysts, illustrating little more than that they know what pleases their employers and that their powers of prognostication are nonexistent. And yet, full of bravado and confidence, they explain what stocks to buy, when a recession will come along, what the Federal Reserve is going to do, and when the market is going to tank. (Truth be told, that last one is less of a prediction these days and more a case of real-time reporting.)
These forecasts are, for the most part, exercises in futility.