If you watch any of my videos or ever read my blog or newsletter, you know that I try not to give any credence to predictions, and I try to be careful about recency bias – the idea that the recent past is going to extrapolate indefinitely into the future.
Lo and behold was I happy on January 2nd. The Wall Street Journal put out a big half-page spread with all kinds of graphs and charts showing that the bank analysts on Wall Street didn’t think that the stock market was going to perform well in 2019, and they were greatly reducing their projections for returns.
They were doing that, of course, because the stock market did poorly in the fourth quarter, so they just think it’s going to continue like that.
What actually happened? January was a great month in the stock market. The Dow has been up seven straight weeks and the other indices are up nearly 10%. That could go away tomorrow, but I had to laugh when I dug that prediction out.
Pay no attention to predictions other than to laugh at them in hindsight, and when a prediction is right, look at the other predictions someone has made because as they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
My name is Mike Garry, and my company is Yardley Wealth Management. We are a fiduciary, fee-only financial planning, and wealth management firm in Newtown, Pennsylvania. (That’s in Bucks County).
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