It’s the time of year when all the major banks make their forecasts for the coming year. Are they really worthy of use for your investment strategy? Before you react to the 2023 forecasts, let’s look back at their previous years’ outlooks to see just how reliable (or unreliable) these one-year forecasts really are.

Each meeting, the FOMC creates an outlook for the Fed Funds rate called the “Dot Plot” denoting their projection for future interest rates in subsequent years. Over the past year, their forecasts for the future have changed dramatically. Even the best and brightest can't predict the market. What do we make of this?

Inflation is higher than it’s been in quite a while and everyone reading this is seeing price increases around them.

But what should we make of that information? As usual, it helps to consider current events in a historical context to discover informative insights.

At its March 15–16 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its federal target funds rate by a quarter-point. It was the first increase since December 2018, but it wasn’t a huge surprise. What does this mean and how will it impact the economy?

We have often cited studies on how poorly forecasters foretell the future. For the past several years, we have looked back at annual S&P 500 index forecasts provided by economists at major US banks to see how they did. As the great philosopher/baseball player, Yogi Berra would say, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”