Become a financial superforecaster

Superforecasting was one of my favorite books of 2015. Although Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner pretty well steered clear of the financial markets in the book, recognizing that markets are, as I wrote in my review, “rife with aleatory uncertainty (the unknowable),” they nevertheless believed that, even in the financial markets, learning to become a superforecaster would pay off.

Now we all have a chance to become part of the Good Judgment community and try our hands at forecasting. Who knows, maybe we’ll discover that we have what it takes to become a superforecaster.

Here’s the press release announcing the challenge.

Good Judgment Inc (GJI) and the CFA Society Los Angeles are launching an exciting new partnership for the members of CFA Society Los Angeles, the wider global CFA community, and those interested in becoming better forecasters in the world of economics and finance.

CFA charterholders and other interested parties will have the opportunity to compete in the “CFA Society Los Angeles 2017 Finance & Economic Challenge” (www.gjopen.com/cfa) on a battery of forecastable questions debuting on February 16 on Good Judgment Open (GJI’s crowdsourced forecasting platform). Participants will be challenged to forecast pressing questions on a variety of topics, such as:

• Before 1 July 2017, will new federal funding be approved for the California High-Speed Rail Authority's "bullet train" project?
• What will be the end-of-day closing value for the euro against the U.S. dollar on 15 February 2018?
• Before 2018, will Tesla file for bankruptcy or begin restructuring their debt in a corporate workout?

The CFA Society Los Angeles Board of Governors agreed that posting a challenge focused on economics and finance on Good Judgment Open would provide its members a superb platform to interact on important questions of the day, while simultaneously improving their ability to make good judgments.

Why forecast with GJI and CFA Society Los Angeles?

1. Keeping score is essential to get the feedback that improves accuracy. So often in human judgment, there is no objective measurement of success. Good Judgment Open uses a scoring system that allows forecasters to learn how the accuracy of their forecasts differs from the crowd.

2. Small improvements in forecasting add up.

3. Forecasting is a skill that can be best cultivated in dedicated forecasting tournaments (demonstrated by the work of Dr. Phil Tetlock, co-founder of GJI and co-author of “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction”)

4. The 25 economics and finance questions will offer experts in the broader business community an opportunity to leverage their expertise to forecast questions relevant to their work.

To participate in the “CFA Society Los Angeles 2017 Finance & Economic Challenge,” please go to gjopen.com/cfa and register for the Challenge to begin forecasting.