History's Brighter Future

I invite you on a journey to consider  the role that the past has on our future.  More specifically, I want to explore how our own choices in looking into the past color our expectations for the future.  I have been reflecting on a Spanish idiomatic expression over the past little while. El mejor profeta del futuro es el pasado.

This "refrán" states that the best predictor of the future is the past.  Of course, it uses the word prophet instead of predictor.  How many have wanted, at least for a moment, the ability to see the future?  If only one could see the future, just a little bit, he could make the right choice today and eliminate future error.  Often we don't wish for too much, rather just enough so that we can know that all will be generally well.  But since we cannot see the future we take what facts we know and we analyze, discuss, gossip and prepare.

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As we do these things, what is our primary focus?  It is the past.  We believe that the best way to predict the future is by finding repeating patterns from the past. The funny part about this process is that every annual stock report I have ever read repudiates this method.  They all say that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Repudiate is too strong a word. They say they don't guarantee a future result.  Clearly companies want us to look to the past to predict the future because they provide us with mountains of data about the past.

The game of investing is far more finite than life but even within that world the types of analyses are infinite, or at least a very large number.  In fact if you take any company of reasonable size I am certain that right now you can find an analyst who can demonstrate why that company is about to go on a significant run.  I am equally confident that you can find an analyst who can give a valid argument why the company is about to pull back.  How can this be?

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Each analyst takes certain assumptions in order to predict the future and those assumptions shift the focus from the past into the present and toward the future.  That distracts the analyst from the best predictor of the future. To best predict the future keep your eye on the past.

I am an optimist but do you want to know what scares me most? I don't know our past. I live in a neighborhood, community and nation.  My past and their pasts join to make it our past. I am amazed and thrilled by the diversity of the community in which I live and I do not want that to change.  But that diversity offers a rich challenge to immerse myself into the history of my friends and neighbors.  I truly believe that any prediction for a better future must include a clearer vision of our collective pasts.

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