Are predictions worth the paper they’re printed on?

Are predictions worth the paper they’re printed on, or worthy of the papers they’re printed in?

The level of uncertainty about the short-term future has exploded, as international affairs have entered an area totally without precedent, and stock markets are on a rollercoaster without controls. It’s at times like these that we turn to trusted media sources to try to make sense and get a better perspective. But is there any reason to expect that the predictions we get are in any way better than just shots in the dark?

A “typical” newspaper/channel item just a fortnight ago ran something like “Wall Street earnings expectations for early 2026 point to continued growth, with analysts forecasting solid earnings for the S&P 500, driven by tech and resilient spending, though growth rates are moderating from late 2025’s surge.”

Skip ahead just a week, and a report reads “Stocks did their best Gollum impression and fell in response to chaos and confusion yesterday, after President Trump renewed fears of a trade war with Europe. The Dow plummeted nearly 900 points and the S&P 500 had its worst day since October. Nvidia’s day was especially rough, highlighting a Tuesday that Big Tech would like to forget.”

Facing the facts, not the guesses.

No-one can predict the future. Analysts make guesses based partly on published information, partly on newsroom chatter, partly on trends in unrelated areas, and mostly on “gut-feel”. Then a bunch of them pool their guesstimates, and this becomes the bar against which actual performance is measured.

There’s nothing wrong with this, because it’s a free country, and people are free to make fools of themselves. What’s wrong is that when they get it wrong – and they do get it wrong frequently – it’s not that they were wrong, but that whatever they were predicting didn’t happen due to some failure (or sometimes – over-achievement) by the party whose behavior they were predicting.

It’s out there in plain view. Every few weeks, a familiar phrase dominates the financial headlines: Company X failed to meet expectations. Sometimes it’s followed by a sharp market sell-off; sometimes by a shrug. Less often, the inverse appears: Company Y beat expectations, sending shares sharply higher. Either way, the framing is remarkably consistent. Expectations are treated as an objective benchmark, and companies are judged by how closely they conform to it.

What almost never appears is the more obvious point: those expectations were wrong!

After all, expectations do not materialize on their own. They are broadcast – confidently and publicly – by analysts, strategists, commentators, pollsters, critics, and other designated “experts” whose job is to anticipate outcomes before they occur. Yet when those outcomes diverge from the forecast, the failure is rarely attributed to the forecast itself. Instead, something else is said to have gone wrong.

If it was about company performance, the company failed. If it was about politics, the electorate surprised everyone. If it was a forecast of the “next big thing” in fashion, movies, or music, the audience lost interest. It can also be because the market reassessed, or the environment changed. The people making the predictions, curiously, remain blameless.

So, when predictions fail, they weren’t “wrong”!

This is not unique to finance. It appears wherever expert prediction plays a central role in shaping public perception.

Elections are “too close to call” right up until they aren’t, at which point voters are said to have shifted late, hidden their preferences, or behaved unpredictably. Cultural tastemakers anoint the next breakout star or blockbuster franchise, only to explain its disappearance as a change in tastes or timing rather than an overconfident forecast. Technology evangelists promise imminent revolutions that quietly slip by a decade later, reframed not as misjudgments but as timelines that proved “longer than expected.”

In each case, the prediction fails, but the predictor didn’t get it wrong. The language does the work. Outcomes “defy expectations.” Results are “hard to predict.” Systems are “complex.” Conditions “evolve.” These statements sound humble, even wise, yet they share one defining feature: they concede uncertainty without conceding error.

No one says, “We were wrong.” They say, “This was difficult.” 

Over time, this framing creates a powerful illusion: that expectations themselves are reliable, even if outcomes are not. Markets, voters, audiences, and consumers are portrayed as volatile or inscrutable, while the forecasts that failed to anticipate them retain their authority.

This matters, because expectations don’t just describe the world. They actively shape it. In markets, they move prices. In politics, they shape narratives of legitimacy or surprise. In culture, they influence investment, promotion, and attention. Treating expectations as neutral benchmarks rather than fallible judgments gives them a status they have not earned.

The result is an asymmetry. Companies can fail. Candidates can lose. Products can flop. But expert predictions almost never “get it wrong” in a way that costs credibility. They are revised, contextualized, or forgotten, only to be replaced by a fresh set of expectations in the next cycle.

So take care, and a good dose of skepticism, next time you read a confident prediction of what’s just around the corner.