Dow Prediction for 12/31/10

[Martha]

I'll say 11505

The winner.

 

[NW-Bound]

If you look at the poll after voting your choice is in italics.

Thanks. I forgot how I voted. Let's see. 11500 - 12500. And the Dow closed at 11578.

Darn, I am good (even if I did not remember what it was).

 

[clifp]

Congratulations to the forum with 40% (including me) correctly predicting that Dow would end between 11,500 and 12,500. A 11% rise for the year with a 2.8% dividend yield adds up to almost 13.8% total return. The S&P total return of 14.3% and NASDAQ of just over 18%. All in all a very good year on Wall St and certainly a much better year to be an investor than poor working guy.

 

[NW-Bound]

... much better year to be an investor than [-]poor[/-] working guy.

Hey, many of us are both.

 

[Ronstar]

The winner.

Thanks! But it was just a wild ass guess.

 

[MichaelB]

All right, I say the Dow below 9000. Say, 8750

and,

The unemployment rate stays above 9.5%
The Cubs are gonna win the pennant
The Dems will keep the house
My wife and kids will appreciate me

Jeez. The only one I got right was the unemployment rate. The other I wasn't even close.

 

[rescueme]

...it was just a wild ass guess.

Which one of these three helped you?

CalPhotos

 

[73ss454]

Thanks! But it was just a wild ass guess.

Ronstar, you are too modest. All predictions are a guess, no?

 

[RonBoyd]

Ronstar, you are too modest. All predictions are a guess, no?

I have noticed there a few individuals who don't believe that... or maybe they don't understand the concept.

 

[FUEGO]

What I find amazing is that if we all had picked an exact Dow terminal value instead of a range, 11577 would be VERY close to the median guess. 53% of respondents guessed above 11,500 and 47% guessed below 11,500 (leaving the median presumably just above 11,500).

 

[NW-Bound]

All this predictive power deserves at least a 30-second slot on CNBC tomorrow morning.

Has anyone called the network? And Andy better beefs up his servers to handle the onslaught of the Web traffic. Oh no!

 

[Gumby]

The Wisdom of Crowds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[NW-Bound]

And why do I keep thinking of the folly of the crowd? And isn't one of the rules of the stock market that the majority is usually wrong?

Note that forum members here are not in the majority of the population. Ah, that explains it. Wisdom of the "elite" crowd, not the "bozo" crowd.

 

[Ronstar]

Which one of these three helped you?

CalPhotos

Hmmm, none of those look familiar

Ronstar, you are too modest. All predictions are a guess, no?

Yes, I guess you're right.

 

[clifp]

And why do I keep thinking of the folly of the crowd? And isn't one of the rules of the stock market that the majority is usually wrong?

Note that forum members here are not in the majority of the population. Ah, that explains it. Wisdom of the "elite" crowd, not the "bozo" crowd.

We have a winner. The masses are to easily swayed by the expert with loudest megaphone on subject which they are fundamentally ignorant about.

I am not saying that public is stupid. For instance, I am constantly impressed by how accurate sports betting lines are. (Note I am not a sport bettor and not much of a sports fan period.) I think they are accurate because you have millions of knowledgeable fans making independent assessment of the outcome of the game. They may listen to ESPN etc but they have a vested interested in doing their own research.

Same thing for this forum, lots of folks have a very good knowledge of how the stock market works. We may listen to experts but for the most part we make an independent assessment that says I am going to tweak my AA cause I think stocks are under or overvalued. Obviously crashes happen and the forum didn't see it. Even then we had people like Running Man and a couple of other warning about the leverage problems in early 2008.

Or to put it another way, when some of my friends, acquittances and my mom start talking about buying or selling stocks, I view this as contrary indicator. Not this forum.

 

[kcowan]

For Canadians on this board, we are running a contest again this year to forecast the DOW, Gold, OIL, TSX and CAD. The winner was Snowman whose forecasts were
11,600, 1225, 88, 12,800 and 1.00 against actuals of
11,578, 1421, 91, 13,443 and 1.002
If you are interested in participating, make your guesses by Jan 16th Midnight at
2011 predictions contest - Canadian Money Forum