Avoid The Wolves Of Wall Street When Forecasting Investment Returns

We live in a world of nearly infinite, nearly free information. That includes financial information, commentary, journalism, and forecasts. Among this clutter, it can be very hard to decide what deserves attention, what's worthwhile, and what to believe.

Print, television, and Internet journalism thrives on readers and viewers. In a media landscape that is so crowded, being sensible, useful, and accurate is often boring. Boring is bad for traffic, and bad for revenue. Strong incentives exist to make content (including financial content) exciting and entertaining, rather than valuable.

Similarly, in a marketplace that offers thousands of mutual funds, ETFs, hedge funds, private equity funds, and asset managers competing for "share of balance sheet," their most urgent competition is for your attention.