Friday, March 07, 2008

Analyst Abuse

"With gasoline futures having gained some 30 cents over the last few weeks, and the summer driving season yet to be priced in, analysts say gasoline prices will climb substantially over the next couple of months and will likely top $4 a gallon in many areas by mid-May." This is a recent clip cut out of a CNN article. I am sure the fox version of this had it at $5.00 a gallon.

What bugs me about this statement?

1.) Who are these analysts? How did they get to this figure?

2.) People don't understand that the numbers that papers print is the highest value given by the analysts. The truth is the mean number they predicted is around $3.39 the highest was $4.02 big difference on a per gallon basis.

3.) The papers should print the range and the mean estimates so people can make their own decisions.

4.) They do it to scare people and I think it is not responsible. My grandma starts to get scared and I don't like that. True it is not a lie, it is just not the truth.

5.) If you print predictions you should have to print the source. In my opinion it is a crime to make these predictions and be able to hide behind them. It is market tampering in my opinion and should not be protected by Freedom of the Press.

6.) The should also have to print how often this analyst has been right in the past. His perdicton batting average if you will.

7.) I also wish people just knew how much fluxuation there can be in three months. If Iran nukes someone in the middle east prices could go $15 dollars a barrel...you just never know.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Either way... fuck that!

Ribonuff said...

Well, the Prez doesn't seem to know about this. [Heard on NPR hourly highlights a few days ago.]
Is that a good sign or a bad sign.

Anonymous said...

The price of gas has never been an issue for me.
The fact is, I'm middle class and somewhat complacent. I just do what I want to do and am scheduled to do, not changing my plans with price of fuel variations. I just pay the price of the fill-up every ten days.
That said, I do a lot of walking in my daily rounds, so I don't need to fill up that often.

cher said...

i predict that you have a 1 in four chance of being attacked by a cougar ;)

source unknown

Bill From Gainesville said...

As the price of gas goes up so does all the other consumer goods because they are generally shipped by truck and one of the varable costs of trucking is Gas prices... so for example, the porn you may buy today will cost $34.00 whereas that same porn will be $39.00 in July.... I think the answer to address this price crunch is PORN FUTURES, a new financial market...

Mitchie said...

too bad you can't get to heaven on roller skates, eh?

xoxo

Ma said...

cars suck - gas does too