We all remember fairytales where some witch could predict the future – a handy talent no doubt. But the reality is that even your average joe sees Tarot cards and crystal balls as fairground entertainment. Investors on the other hand are happy to place their hard earned cash with the finance equivalents of Marty McFly and Doc Brown.

James Montier of Societe Generale has made a recent speech on the problems with the Efficient Market Hypothesis in which he brought up the subject of forecasting (via Clusterstock):

In my opinion [trying to forecast the future] is one of the biggest wastes of time, yet one that is nearly universal in our industry. Pretty much 80-90% of the investment processes that I come across revolve around forecasting. Yet there isn’t a scrap of evidence to suggest that we can actually see the future at all.

In fact the evidence clearly points the other way, click here to see some rather interesting charts on the subject that leave little room for doubt…