FORECASTS

“I have never professed to have a crystal ball that forecasts market direction” Daniel Loeb

"It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts." Benjamin Graham

"Most forecasts don’t allow for alternative outcomes" Howard Marks

“The differences between forecasts are trivial relative to the difference between all forecasts and what happens” John Kay

"We have two kinds of forecasters, those who don't know and those who don't know they don't know."  John Kenneth Galbraith

"I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children" Warren Buffett

 “People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There’s always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today’s forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts. It happens over and over and over.” Charlie Munger

“My financial success stands in stark contrast with my ability to forecast events” George Soros

“When it comes to macro events, you can either predict or react. I’ve proven time and again that my crystal ball is horrible, so my focus has to be on reacting to extremes in individual securities by selling at high valuations and buying at low valuations.” Bruce Berkowitz

"I have resigned from the professional undertaking of coin-flipping. I am a student of uncertainty. I have no idea where the stock market is going to be. So when I am creating trades for my portfolio and my clients I am agnostic. I just want to enhance the probability that I make money come what may" Hugh Hendry

“If I were to judge any of the best money managers, including myself, simply on the quality of their long term predictions, including myself, both micro and macro, the rating would be average at best” Michael Steinhardt  

"My own investment philosophy has developed around the theory that prophecy reveals far more about the frailties of the prophet than it reveals of the future" Warren Buffett

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable” John Kenneth Galbraith

“We ignore outlooks and forecasts  ...  we’re lousy at it and we admit it… everyone else is lousy too, but most people won’t admit it.”  Marty Whitman

“I really have no ability to forecast gold prices. I have been in the business for 30 years, and it occupies my mind day and night.” Peter Munk, chairman of Barrick Gold

"Amazingly investors often rely on interest rate forecasts and stock market predictions despite overwhelming evidence that these have little or no value in predicting stock price moves" Chris Davis

"Every year I talk to the executives of a thousand companies, and I can’t avoid hearing from the various gold bugs, interest rate disciples, Federal Reserve watchers, and fiscal mystics quoted in the newspapers. Thousands of experts study overbought indicators, oversold indicators, head and shoulder patters, put-call ratios, the Fed’s policy on money supply, foreign investment, movement of all the constellations through the heavens, and the moss on the oak trees and they can’t predict markets with any useful consistency any more than the gizzard squeezers could tell the Roman emperors when the Huns would attack." Peter Lynch

"When one is investing, one is dealing with the future.  None of us - regardless of intellect have actually been to the future, so we don't know what we are talking about" Hugh Hendry

"I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections, but we care very much about, and look very deeply at, track records. If a company has a lousy track record, but a very bright future, we will miss the opportunity..."  Warren Buffett

 "[Projections] are put together by people who have an interest in a particular outcome, have a subconscious bias, and its apparent precision makes it fallacious. They remind me of Mark Twain's saying, 'A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.' Projections in America are often a lie, although not an intentional one, but the worst kind because the forecaster often believes them himself."  Charlie Munger

"In both economic forecasting and investment management, it’s worth noting that there’s usually someone who gets it exactly right… but it’s rarely the same person twice. " Howard Marks

“The biggest lesson I learned was that it is very difficult to predict future market trends" John Paulsen

"Charlie Munger has famously espoused on the wisdom of figuring out what to avoid in pursuit of success. If you follow this wisdom then you’ll be comforted to know that Arlington abstains from trying to forecast and profit from market-moving events" Allan Mecham

"No matter how careful you are, you can neither predict nor control the future" Sir John Temptleton

"We don't do a lot of forecasting per se about where markets are going.  I have been burned enough trying"  Peter Cundill

“Pundits forecast not because they know, but because they are asked.” John Kenneth Galbraith

"I am not in the business of predicting general stock market or business fluctuations.  If you think I can do this, or think it is essential to an investment program, you should not be in the partnership" Warren Buffett 1966

"It is neither my policy nor my interest to attempt to predict broad stock market levels to any degree of precision over any useful time frame.  Rather, I will respond to the opportunities that the stock market provides, no matter the prospects for or level of the general market" Michael Burry

"I have often argued that precise forecasting is a futile exercise anyway; Not only are the predictions overwhelmingly incorrect, but what really matters is how much you stand to gain if you are right and how much you stand to lose if you are wrong." Francois Sicart

"It all boils down to the following; figuring out if our miscalculations or misforecasts are on balance more harmful than they are beneficial, and how accelerating the damage is"  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Accepting that we cannot predict the future - ie there will always be unexpected and highly consequential events - is the first step to becoming less fragile and more adaptable.  People should be highly skeptical of anyone's, including their own, ability to predict the future and instead pursue strategies that can survive whatever may occur" Seth Klarman

"We are decidedly agnostic when it comes to acting on the majority of forecasts for the economy - in part because prognosticators are, at least in the short term not paid according to the accuracy of their pronouncements.  If they were, there would be no economists" Frank Martin

"Old forecasts are like old news - soon forgotten - and pundits are almost never asked to reconcile what they said with what actually happened"  Philip Tetlock

“I don’t let people do projections for me because I don’t like throwing up on the desk.” Charlie Munger

“I’ve found over a lifetime that so-called experts don’t really have much to tell us that is of value. They basically get a lot of press and media attention because they make strong definite claims about one thing or another. But strong definite claims are usually not the stuff of accurate predicting. We can only see the future very fuzzily, so there are a lot of possibilities you have to kind of weigh them and think about them. And we’ve found that people that go about things that way can make somewhat better predictions on average than chance and also better than the  people that don’t think that way. My view is, on most things we can speculate about a lots of possibilities, but it’s difficult to get enough of an edge to actually put money down and make a profit. But it’s worth speculating anyhow because you can be ready, at least psychologically, for the bizare range of things that may unfold” Ed Thorp