The Flaws of Forecasting: Lessons from Rats to Markets

Dan Rasmussen is the founder and CIO of Verdad Advisers, an unconventional quantitative investment boutique. In this conversation, Steve and Dan agree that private equity and credit look highly risky for the next decade. They debate the value of forecasting, where they have very different views. They similarly disagree on forecast horizons, with Dan favouring near term accuracy and Steve thinking longer term forecasts are more likely to be accurate. They also debate the persistence of growth and discuss Dan’s favourite financial metric.

Steve and Dan have different perspectives on many issueswhich leads to apparently contradictory conclusions but in reality, they don’t disagree – the issue is base rates versus marginal opportunities. Steve and Dan view markets through different lenses, which makes for an interesting discussion.