Forecasts Quotes

• Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

  Lord Kelvin

  Silly, Creativity, Science

  97 Copy quote

• The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?

  David Sarnoff

  Silly, Creativity, Dumb

  20 Copy quote

• We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good.

  Warren Buffett

  Long, Looks, Investing

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.165, John Wiley & Sons

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• A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service: The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible.

  Frederick W. Smith

  Ideas, Yale, Order

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• A good portfolio is more than a long list of good stocks and bonds. It is a balanced whole, providing the investor with protections and opportunities with respect to a wide range of contingencies.

  Harry Markowitz

  Business, Opportunity, Long

  113 Copy quote

• When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't know the answer either.

  Edgar Fiedler

  Asking, Answers, Topics

  6 Copy quote

• Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy. It is unrelenting; the news, the stock-exchange reports, and the weather forecast are about the only things spared.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Laughter, Taken, Weather

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.49, Verso

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• If you have reason to think that yesterday's forecast went wrong, there is no glory in sticking to it.

  Nate Silver

  Thinking, Yesterday, Glory

  3 Copy quote

• Make then your forecasts, my lords Astrologers, with your slavish physicians, by means of those astrolabes with which you seek to discern the fantastic nine moving spheres; in these you finally imprison your own minds, so that you appear to me but as parrots in a cage, while I watch you dancing up and down, turning and hopping within those circles.

  Giordano Bruno

  Moving, Mean, Circles

  "On the Infinite Universe and Worlds". Book by Giordano Bruno, 1584.

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• Confidence in a forecast rises with the amount of information that goes into it. But the accuracy of the forecast stays the same.

  Dean Williams

  Investing, Information, Accuracy

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• We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and 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

  Children, Believe, Long

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.165, John Wiley & Sons

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• If you have to forecast, forecast often.

  Edgar Fiedler

  Business, Ifs

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• Meteorologists have the right perspective. They ground themselves in the current conditions (today’s highs/lows). They briefly acknowledge significant events of the past (record temps). And they keep an eye on the future (five-day forecast). Honor your past accomplishments, live in the present moment, and look to the future.

  Clifton Anderson

  Eye, Past, Accomplishment

  14 Copy quote

• Senator, my answer is that the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court requires that nominees before this committee for a position on that court not forecast, give predictions, give hints, about how they might rule in cases that might come before the Supreme Court,.

  John Roberts

  Integrity, Giving, Independence

  6 Copy quote

• All decisions originate in the brain. So if we can better understand what's happening in the brain when we make investment decisions, maybe one day we'll be able to make more accurate financial forecasts - for a stock or even the entire market.

  Kabir Sehgal

  Decision, Brain, One Day

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• 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

  Opportunity, Track, Missing

  21 Copy quote

• "(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010." Every entrepreneur has a few slides about how the market potential for his segment is tens of billions. It doesn't matter if the product is bar mitzah planning software or 802.11 chip sets. Venture capitalists don't believe this type of forecast because it's the fifth one of this magnitude that they've heard that day. Entrepreneurs would do themselves a favor by simply removing any reference to market size estimates from consulting firms.

  Guy Kawasaki

  Business, Believe, Names

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• It's not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Knowledge, Ideas, Ties

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• DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Pulse, Physicians

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.56, University of Georgia Press

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• I have no plans to get an iPad. I know it will do more things than my Kindle, but I don’t want more things. If I want other stuff - movies, TV shows, weather forecasts, the forthcoming Josh Ritter album - I have my Mac.

  Stephen King

  Tv Shows, Weather, Ipads

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• In college, I was a weather anchor for the local news. I would 'borrow' my forecast from The Weather Channel.

  Emily Procter

  College, Anchors, Weather

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• Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what's actually happening to the companies in which you've invested

  Peter Lynch

  Economy, Interest, Rate

  Peter Lynch (2012). “Beating the Street”, p.307, Simon and Schuster

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• This is my long-run forecast in brief: The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards. I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.

  Julian Simon

  Running, Country, Thinking

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• There is only one more thing for me to say: Please help make my forecast wrong.  Together we could create a much better world.

  Jørgen Randers

  Together, World, Helping

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• We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and
  businessmen. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or treasury bill yields fluctuating between 2.8% and 17.4%.

  Warren Buffett

  War, Yield, Years

  Letter To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., www.berkshirehathaway.com. March 7, 1995.

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