Getting Comfortable With Many, Micro Updates

For years we’ve worked closely with the folks at Good Judgement Inc. from “Superforecasting” fame. One of our friends there, Chris Karvetski, recently published a white paper called “Superforecasters: A Decade of Stochastic Dominance” on Superforecasters’ attributes and skills. For analysis, Chris studied 108 forecast questions with 167,000 forecasts to compare the differences between accuracy and approach between Superforecasters and everyone else.

From an accuracy perspective, Superforecasters dominate with accuracy that is 36% better (0.166 error for Superforecasters versus 0.259 for general forecasters).

Alpha Theory clients forecast stock price movement. As such, the question we should ask is “how can we be more like Superforecasters?” Well, Chris broke down the frequency and magnitude of updates and I believe the answer is clear.

Superforecasters update their forecasts ~4x more often which leads them to adjustments that are about half the size. Imagine steering a boat towards a lighthouse. You can choose to make 3 major adjustments or 11 minor adjustments. Which method is going to get you closer to the lighthouse?

As analysts, to gain better forecast accuracy, we should frequently update our price targets and probability forecasts. Obviously, new information warrants updates but we should still make updates even when there is no new information. As The Verve says, “we’re a million different people from one day to the next.” We all have what Daniel Kahneman calls, Occasion Noise, which basically means that we change our opinions without the facts changing. Our mood impacts our forecasts. To get a truer sense of our own opinions, we should ask ourselves the same question at different times.

Let’s be like Superforecasters and get comfortable with many, micro updates. In our next blog post, we’ll explore the impact that update frequency has on returns.

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