Nobody Predicts the Future — And That’s Okay in Investing
In an email to his clients, Andreas Clenow once wrote " Perhaps the most absurd claim in finance is the ability to see the future. To some extent, skill, experience, and hard work can help you tilt probabilities slightly in your favor — but nobody sees the future. " He continued: " It’s easy to get pulled into the crystal ball business. It’s tempting to give an answer when the media asks where the S&P will be a year from now. The good news is that you don’t need to predict the future. ". Clenow’s words highlight a crucial truth often buried beneath headlines and expert forecasts: markets are inherently unpredictable. Financial news, analyst opinions, and flashy investment ideas often create the illusion that with enough data, charts, or experience, one can accurately forecast market moves. But in reality, markets are driven by an intricate and ever-evolving web of factors — macroeconomic shifts, political events, human behavior, innovation, and randomness. Eve...