house prices set to fall 20%

wotsthat

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Capital Economics forecast it................:think:

Are you sure you're not suffering from a touch of confirmation bias like the rest of humanity?

Here's Mr. Bootle's bio from the Capital Economics site..

He has a long and distinguished record of successful forecasting of major events and market movements, often in contrast to the prevailing orthodoxy of the time, including:

Perceiving that before the Great Recession real estate markets were caught up in a bubble.

Foreseeing the serious impact of the credit crunch.

Forecasting the collapse of the dotcom boom.

Seeing that the UK would be forced out of the ERM in 1992 and, in contrast to the official Treasury line and the views of most forecasters, predicting that inflation and interest rates would fall.

Forecasting that rising inflation would prompt UK interest rates to be raised to 15% in 1989.

Realising that during the “hard monetarist” phase in 1979-81, inflation was going to fall sharply despite the fact the broad money supply was growing rapidly.

And most famously, predicting as early as October 1990, that the financial climate in Europe and North America would be transformed by sustained low inflation – and maintaining this view even though many people in the market dismissed “The Death of Inflation” as a joke.

Quite a visionary and yet he still drags himself out of bed pre-dawn to appear as a talking head on various TV and radio shows.

The most accurate forecast would probably be to say any measurable parameter will be within a standard deviation or so of where it is now in the near to medium term. That's very boring though and isn't going to get you a seat on Bloomberg TV from where you get to self promote.

There are now a long procession of commentators appearing confidently saying oil will remain low without any self awareness of the fact that the drop caught most of them by complete surprise.

I think he's like most commentators simply coin flipping and positioning himself as a perma bear/ bull for hire.