For someone predicting the stock market, A minus is pretty good. If he hedged his bet predicting something like "around 12,000" he would have gotten the A but he went all out with the 12,000 prediction shooting for the A plus.
So what's your prediction for 2011?
I agree, he gets an A-.
My prediction is that unemployment will go down in 2011 and will end up slightly under 8% by the end of the year.
As I previously explained, Flagpole's prediction was wrong. When the Dow was a bit over 10,500 in September, he predicted it would hit 12,000 by year's end, and it did not. Not even close (it hit 11,600 at it's peak -- gained a little over 1,000 of the 1,500 point gain he predicted.
Had you bet against Flagpole, would you not expect to collect?
I agree, his prediction, while not perfect, was pretty good.
I appreciate the grade of A-, but since I called for a Dow of 12,000 and it didn't quite get there, I say it's a fail. I give myself an F.
That said, my investing strategy wouldn't have been any different had it reached 12,000 or not. It was just an interesting period of time to watch and see what it did, and to me, things were lined up too well for the market to go down...which it didn't of course.
It's too early yet for me to make a solid 2011 prediction. There SHOULD be some hiring that goes on, and there SHOULD be some slow growth in 2011, and after two VERY good years in a row in the stock market (I made 34.7% in 2009 and 19.8% in 2010), it would seem that a more modest growth year is in order (under 10%), but logic rarely has a play in the market, and we've yet to see what the new Congress will do, so no predictions for me yet.
Compared to this one, Flagpole should definitely get the A...
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3480117&page=0