Forecasting Quotes

If I have noticed anything over these 60 years on Wall Street, it is that people do not succeed in forecasting what`s going to happen to the stock market.

Future forecasting is all about testing strategies - it's like a wind tunnel.

I have seen the future and it's like the present, only longer.

Never forget this simple truism: Forecasting is marketing, plain and simple.

Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.

The goal of forecasting is not to predict the future but to tell you what you need to know to take meaningful action in the present

The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.

We are convinced that the intelligent investor can derive satisfactory results from pricing of either type (market timing or fundamental analysis via price). We are equally sure that if he places his emphasis on timing, in the sense of forecasting, he will end up as a speculator and with a speculator's financial results." And "The speculator's primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.

I'm an economist, I do a lot of forecasting, and I'm probably one of the most successful forecasters in terms of very specific kinds of forecasts.

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

There are domains in which expertise is not possible. Stock picking is a good example. And in long-term political strategic forecasting, it's been shown that experts are just not better than a dice-throwing monkey.

I think that intelligent forecasting (company revenues, earnings, etc.) should not seek to predict what will in fact happen in the future. Its purpose ought to be to illuminate the road, to point out obstacles and potential pitfalls and so assist management to tailor events and to bend them in a desired direction. Forecasting should be used as a device to put both problems and opportunities into perspective. It is a management tool, but it can never be a substitute for strategy, nor should it ever be used as the primary basis for portfolio investment decisions.

It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.

I deal in facts, not forecasting the future. That's crystal ball stuff. That doesn't work.

Constraint theory asks: What is the price for doing this? Now one way around constraint theory is declaring your enemy crazy. Crazy and stupid are not concepts used in forecasting. When people say they're really stupid or they're crazy, that's laziness. That means I don't want to think through their position or about what they're really going to do.

Nate Silver is now forecasting Oscar winners. The only area of life in which he has no expertise, ironically, is life itself.

Computer modelling for weather forecasting, and indeed for climate forecasting, has reached its limits.

The quest for certainty in forecasting outcomes can be the enemy of progress.

Aside from its importance to many branches of science, a knowledge of the oceans has a practical value for mankind. The intelligent development of our fishing industries, the laying of oceanic cables, the proper construction of harbor-works, oceanic commerce and navigation, as well as long-range weather forecasting, are all dependent on an understanding of the ocean.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.

Now it will take a long time to scale biofuels, but I'm the only one in the world forecasting oil dropping in price to $35 a barrel by 2030. I'll put it on the record: Oil will not be able to compete with cellulosic biofuels. If you do it from food, the food will get so expensive you can't make fuel out of it.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark.

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

Now if you can recognize and memorize a grandmaster's game, and you have the respect to understand [Zimbabwean president Robert] Mugabe who has survived past anyone's expectations, and make the simple assumption it wasn't an accident, and you understand why he did what he did, now you're ready to predict ... The key to forecasting is to understand both the constraints nations are under and the manner in which the struggle for power shapes leaders.

A forecasting game is a kind of simulation, a kind of scenario, a kind of teleconference, a kind of artifact from the future - and more - that enlists the participants as 'first-person forecasters.'

Auto repair, piloting, skiing, perhaps even management: these are skills that yield to application, hard work, and native talent. But forecasting an uncertain future and deciding the best course of action in the face of that future are much less likely to do so. And much of what we've seen so far suggests that a large group of diverse individuals will come up with better and more robust forecasts and make more intelligent decisions than even the most skilled "decision maker."

Don't be forecasting evil unless it is what you can guard against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a defense.

Anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a defense.

Expert estimates of probability are often off by factors of hundreds or thousands. [...] I used to be annoyed when the margin of error was high in a forecasting model that I might put together. Now I view it as perhaps the single most important piece of information that a forecaster provides. When we publish a forecast on FiveThirtyEight, I go to great lengths to document the uncertainty attached to it, even if the uncertainty is sufficiently large that the forecast won't make for punchy headlines.

I believe in analysis and not forecasting.

I'm concerned with the world economy, I'm a specialist in forecasting in that area, and I have a lot of influence in that area, naturally. How big it is, or how big it is personally, is not relevant. The fact is, I'm on the case, where other people are not, and more and more people realize, again and again, that I'm on the case!

Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back. And it’s fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don’t believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don’t believe in science, that’s a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong.

Forecasting by bureaucrats tends to be used for anxiety relief rather than for adequate policy making.

Did they launch the last space shuttle yet?” – Sundown “I don’t follow.” – Ren “I’m just thinking maybe we should evacuate the whole planet. I’ve heard the moon is kind of nice this time of year.” – Sundown “Focus your ADD, Jess.” – Ren “I gotcha, brother. What you’re forecasting is six more plagues coming out of the northwest at maximum velocity with a mild chance of survival. Followed by the world getting swallowed whole in a vat of evil.” – Sundown

Investing is an activity of forecasting the yield over the life of the asset; speculation is the activity of forecasting the psychology of the market.

Satellite photography in the 1970's gave rise to the long-range weather forecast, a month at a time. This in turn gave rise to the observation that the long-range weather forecast was wrong most of the time. In turn, this gave rise to the dropping of the long-range weather forecast and to the admission that really accurate forecasting could only cover the next day or two, and not always then.