Book Club Meeting - Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

A Book Club Sponsored Event

Lunch, salad, and dessert will be catered by Mendocino Farms.

The CFA Society Los Angeles Book Club is targeting a 2017 Superforecasting competition among Society members based on questions chosen and structured by our members. The competition would be hosted on the Good Judgment website with CFALA as a Challenge Sponsor.

This meeting will be to explain the current plans and goals, and seek input from attendees on question topic areas and specific questions members would like to see included in the competition.

The book, Superforecasting, details steps that anyone can learn to become a better forecaster. Accurately forecasting economic and financial events and regimes is critical in order to perform well. No matter what aspect of finance and investing you work in, becoming a better forecaster will help you to be a better and more successful financial professional.

Please join us for a brief review of this exceptional book, an explanation of how you can be a founding member of the 2017 CFALA Superforecasting Challenge, and a brief workshop on superforecasting.

“Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction” by authors Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner

A New York Times Bestseller

An Economist Best Book of 2015

"The most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow." —Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal

We will discuss creating opportunities for local CFA LA Society members to take advantage of the Superforecasting Good Judgment Open website’s (www.gjopen.com) existing tools and how we might use them to structure a local forecasting competition.

The book ‘Superforecasting’ describes how a geopolitical forecasting competition was organized by the U.S. government, and how a group of informed citizens with the right temperament outperformed the entirety of the U.S. intelligence community consisting of thousands of analysts with access to classified information -- and outperformed significantly. Importantly this group of "superforecasters" significantly improved upon their outperformance in year two of the competition by working as a group. Thus, "superforecasting" can be taught and learned.

A key insight from the book is that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course.

This meeting is a first step in setting up a local effort for local Society members to network, compete in forecasting, and develop the mental skills to become better forecasters.

Biography

Philip E. Tetlock is the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and holds appointments in the psychology and political science departments and the Wharton School of Business. He and his wife, Barbara Mellers, are the co-leaders of the Good Judgment Project, a multi-year forecasting study. He is also the author of Expert Political Judgment and (with Aaron Belkin) Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics.

Dan Gardner is a journalist and the author of Risk and Future Babble: Why Pundits are Hedgehogs and Foxes Know Best.