Most of the gurus showing up daily on major financial networks and blogs make forecasts that most of the time are so wrong that they would need a financial bailout on a weekly basis should they really trade their views...at least that is good contrarian information.
As far as I am concerned I write a financial blog and I am author of two books about stock market cycles and stock market forecasting: my readers know that some of my calls are great and some other are not as good and that when they are plain wrong I try to accept it and move forward because admitting your mistakes is the only way you can cut your losses faster. There is no room for a big "ego" on the financial markets.
First time visitors may want to have an idea about my past calls and I think they have the right to know something on this subject considering that they may be spending some of their time reading my posts... for this reason I have decided to post some examples of great calls and also some great flops here: this should save my readers some time when searching for my past comments...if I forgot some please feel free to remind me...;-)
I am a blogger since 2007 and those forecasts from that date are public so they can be easily checked online but before listing some of them it is worth mentioning a couple of calls made over the last 15 years for your information although these are more difficult to be verified, you can trust them or not.
As far as I am concerned I write a financial blog and I am author of two books about stock market cycles and stock market forecasting: my readers know that some of my calls are great and some other are not as good and that when they are plain wrong I try to accept it and move forward because admitting your mistakes is the only way you can cut your losses faster. There is no room for a big "ego" on the financial markets.
First time visitors may want to have an idea about my past calls and I think they have the right to know something on this subject considering that they may be spending some of their time reading my posts... for this reason I have decided to post some examples of great calls and also some great flops here: this should save my readers some time when searching for my past comments...if I forgot some please feel free to remind me...;-)
I am a blogger since 2007 and those forecasts from that date are public so they can be easily checked online but before listing some of them it is worth mentioning a couple of calls made over the last 15 years for your information although these are more difficult to be verified, you can trust them or not.
1998
at that time I was working in Milan as market analyst in BofA: I forecasted that the Italian Stock Index could double in the next couple of years and it did...that call contributed to my promotion to strategist and move to London....in those years bullish calls were probably too easy to be fulfilled and I earned a Guru reputation for recommending an handful of tech stocks that passed from few dollars to 100+ in the matter of few months but again, but that was a bubble and anybody could make such predictions....although somebody got burned shorting the bubble too early...
at that time I was working in Milan as market analyst in BofA: I forecasted that the Italian Stock Index could double in the next couple of years and it did...that call contributed to my promotion to strategist and move to London....in those years bullish calls were probably too easy to be fulfilled and I earned a Guru reputation for recommending an handful of tech stocks that passed from few dollars to 100+ in the matter of few months but again, but that was a bubble and anybody could make such predictions....although somebody got burned shorting the bubble too early...
1999
-at that time Gold was trading at 300 and I forecasted it could go to 1000 within few years: the Dow Jones Industrial Index/Gold spread was almost 40, far too much compared to the previous 100 years history. What happened? Gold traded as low as 250 in 2001 before starting its 10 years long rally that brought it to 1500 Now the Dow/Gold spread is below 10. In that case the long term rational behind the call was great but it was a wrong call: it came two years too early. Timing is all: it does not matter your call will prove to be right later if you get in at the wrong time because markets can remain irrational more than you can remain solvent.
-at that time Gold was trading at 300 and I forecasted it could go to 1000 within few years: the Dow Jones Industrial Index/Gold spread was almost 40, far too much compared to the previous 100 years history. What happened? Gold traded as low as 250 in 2001 before starting its 10 years long rally that brought it to 1500 Now the Dow/Gold spread is below 10. In that case the long term rational behind the call was great but it was a wrong call: it came two years too early. Timing is all: it does not matter your call will prove to be right later if you get in at the wrong time because markets can remain irrational more than you can remain solvent.
-in the same year I called for the Brazilian real to be devaluated and depegged from the USD and it did depreciating by 100% in few months
2001-2002
I called for the Argentinian Peso to be depegged from the USD and it did depreciating by 400% in one year
I called for the Argentinian Peso to be depegged from the USD and it did depreciating by 400% in one year
2003
The worst call of my life: betting on Godado, a private internet company that I confounded few years earlier: my forecast was for it to have bright prospects but it turned out to be a great flop while i wasted a lot of time and opportunities...that company imported in Europe the paid listing business model for search engines in 1999 but the Google dominance was just too much in the business. Again timing: it does not matter being the first, timing is the key to success. At least I learned something from that flop.
The worst call of my life: betting on Godado, a private internet company that I confounded few years earlier: my forecast was for it to have bright prospects but it turned out to be a great flop while i wasted a lot of time and opportunities...that company imported in Europe the paid listing business model for search engines in 1999 but the Google dominance was just too much in the business. Again timing: it does not matter being the first, timing is the key to success. At least I learned something from that flop.
To cut the story short in the following years I decided to improve my timing skills and I studied time cycles (my economist background help me to keep a rigorous approach to the subject) and I realized the best forecasting tools are geometry and astronomy rather than econometrics or signal analysis. In 2007 I started to publish on a blog called "Value Area" and there I made acouple of great calls then I started this blog "Wall Street Watchman" and all my calls of the last few years are public; some examples below. I have no secrets or an "holy grail" solution for forecasting most of the things I know I published on my books, the philosophy behind my forecasting method is shortly described here and it has to do with cycles.
I believe good teachings will reach only the good people and they will be ignored by the others.
I believe good teachings will reach only the good people and they will be ignored by the others.
November 7, 2007 Canadian Dollar Blow Off Top Call
September 4, 2008 The Bear is Back
September 8, 2008 Stock Market Crash Call
April 23, 2010 Stock Market Top Call
Timing of Canadian Dollar blow off top call
September 4, 2008 The Bear is Back
September 8, 2008 Stock Market Crash Call
Timing of my Stock market crash call in the summer 2008
April 23, 2010 Stock Market Top Call
Timing of my Stock market top call April 2010
Sometimes I am wrong....that is part of the game in this business as long as you can quickly realise that you are wrong like for example at the end of the summer of last year:
September 2010 I Expected the market to fall but QE2 program of the FED saved the day for bulls and the index traded only one way higher and it took me the whole month to realize that something was going wrong with my call....
"Horribilis" September 2010 call
2011
I took a couple of month off focusing only on very short term calls and intraday forecast and comments, then I made a new medium term forecast in early January for the whole 2011 (read here my 2011 stock market forecast):
Forecast (above) Actual (below)
The forecast was excellent: predicting the exact top of the market in price and time, the reversal pattern, the low and the rebound. The corrective pattern from September to November was also described but its actual shape was not closely matching the forecast (corrective patterns are always messy).
May 2011: USDCAD Bottom Call : this was one very good call I made in 2011!
USDCAD weekly bars chart
2012
For 2012 rather than publishing a single 1 year forecast on US stocks as I did in January 2011, I will publish forecasts on different markets from time to time on occasion (when I see opportunities worth to be mentioned here.): below links to the new forecasts.
-Italy 2012: a 20 years cycle coming due, forecast and analysis
-Switzerland: the Swiss Franc peg will not last
More forecasts will follow on occasion.
