Quotes About Forecasting

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

A teacher told my mother that I would never become successful, which illustrates the difficulty of long-run forecasting on inadequate data.

Prophecy is nothing but only just an estimation based on regularities of the Nature.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

The best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.

It is, of course, quite impossible to make forecasts about the future except on the hypothetical postulate that in all matters where the nature of changes cannot be definitely foreseen and taken into account, the future is assumed to be a continuance of the past.

I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.

La mejor época posible para invertir es cuando el cielo amenaza tormenta, puesto que los inversores descontarán los ingresos futuros de las acciones a una tasa muy elevada.

It makes sense to predict likely future performance from past performance. Indeed, we often don't have much else to go on. Unfortunately, however, the past can be an uncertain guide to the future.

Economists are very good at saying that something cannot go on forever, but not so good at saying when it will stop.

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

One [has] to sense the trend of history and precede it.

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.

It's not a secret that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Unless you're a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy.

Can you see how worries multiply? Suddenly you are a gifted prophet

One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.

The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.

Part of my advantage is that my strength is economic forecasting, but that only works in free markets, when markets are smarter than people. That's how I started. I watched the stock market, how equities reacted to change in levels of economic activity, and I could understand how price signals worked and how to forecast them.

Commercial institutions, proud of their achievements, do not see that healthy living systems - clean air and water, healthy soil, stable climates - are integral to a functioning economy. As our living systems deteriorate, traditional forecasting and business economics become the equivalent of house rules on a sinking cruise ship.

People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.

Entrepreneurs can't forecast accurately, because they are trying something fundamentally new. So they will often be laughably behind plan - and on the brink of success.

Of course, you think ahead and like to plan to a degree.