On Sunday, September 29, the Green Bay Packers hosted their friendly purple rivals from the West at Lambeau Field.
Things did not go well. Mistakes were made. To be truthful, many mistakes were made.
In successfully bludgeoning themselves into a lopsided 28-7 deficit halfway through the game, the Packers managed to accumulate:
- 2 interceptions
- 2 missed field goals
- 7 penalties for 58 yards
- 10 incomplete passes
The shining beacon of hope from the first half was a 74-yard punt that the Vikings opted to muff. Ugh.
If past performance was precisely indicative of future performance, we would expect the second half of the game to follow the same script.
The final score should have been 56-14 with the Packers suffering through 4 interceptions, 4 missed field goals, 14 penalties for 116 yards, and 20 incomplete passes.
But past performance does not indicate future results. There are just too many variables in the game of football to make it predictable, with the biggest variables being the people that play the game.
Instead of repeating the script, the Packers only had 1 penalty for 10 yards in the second half. They replaced field goal attempts with touchdowns. Yet, in a nod to the illusion of predictive coincidence, they did commit two additional turnovers and had 9 incomplete passes.
Over the last 12 months, one team has been dominating the financial markets. They call them the Magnificent 7. They don’t have a mascot or a logo, but their stock prices have risen significantly as traders’ enthusiasm for artificial intelligence has blossomed.
What do the next 12 months bear for this imposing team? If the past predicted the future, we would say this team’s dominance would continue as it has for the last 12 months. But that is anything but certain.
The variables in the stock market are even more numerous than on a football field. You have millions of participants from all over the world playing on one field which they all see from different perspectives. They all have different motivations and timeframes. They are all trying to discern what the future may hold based on what they know.
Since past performance is not indicative of future performance, we focus our efforts on helping our clients work toward their personal and financial goals using the best tools available to them. This future is equally unpredictable despite our best efforts to plan, but it is certainly rewarding over long periods of time.
Quote of the week: Donald Rumsfeld: “I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.”
