Ahead of the Curve: A Commonsense Guide to Forecasting Business and Market Cycles

Additional Ahead of the Curve: A Commonsense Guide to Forecasting Business and Market Cycles Information

Economic and stock-market cycles affect companies in every industry. Unfortunately, a confusing array of anecdotal and conflicting indicators often renders it impossible for managers and investors to see where the economy is heading in time to take corrective action.

Now, a thirty-five-year Wall Street veteran unveils a new forecasting method that will help managers and investors understand and predict the economic cycles that control their businesses and financial fates. In Ahead of the Curve, Joseph H. Ellis argues that the problem with current forecasting models lies not in the data, but rather in the lack of a clear framework for putting the data in context and reading it correctly. The book explains critical economic indicators in nontechnical language, identifies and documents the recurring cause-and-effect relationships that consistently predict turning points in the economy, and provides the tools managers and investors need to position themselves ahead of cyclical upturns and downturns.

Economic events are not as random and unpredictable as they seem. This book will help readers recognize and react to signs of change that their rivals don't see-and win a sizeable competitive advantage.

What Customers Say About Ahead of the Curve: A Commonsense Guide to Forecasting Business and Market Cycles:

I wish I had been introduced to these remarkable techniques 10 years ago. Great book, I love it and plan to read it a second time. Theory is backed by evidence and it all makes sense 100%. I can't say enough good things about this book. WELL WORTH THE INVESTMENT.

Very will written book on consumer retail economics. I would recommend it if you are looking to forecast consumer behavior, as a PM or retail business owner

I would like to remind him that the author never claimed that's what he was trying to do with his book. He has a great way of identifying possible issues and following his gut feeling like any smart business person does. He gets straight to the point and is VERY logic about getting there.I really appreciated this book, and I recommend it to teachers eager to challenge their grad students. I think we could really use such styles in academia, I have a business background, and I am sure that is why his book appealed to me. I am a strong advocate of reviewing what did not work, especially if results are used to design policies that will affect citizens. I started reading it and did not put it down.

Even though I was only interested in his analysis of consumer earnings as predictable value, it was such an easy read I did not put it down. I found myself on page 182, because I got hungry and I had to eat. To the reviewer who so proudly holds a PhD from MIT and who criticized the author for failing to provide the reader with a model that should unlock all forecasting mysteries. Makes for an exciting class and stretches students' mind out of the common mainstream approach. Yes he mentioned a couple of theories, mostly objectively criticizing their shortcoming. You can see it in his writing style. This is how you create innovative environments and graduate creative people and not by getting angry and shooting down new ideas.M.Chida, Ph.D.

After all, he is not an economist, how dare he tell us what we did was wrong or could be changed. Unless you were reading a different book.But for those interested in a fresh, exciting way to revisit past possible failures in forecasting, especially which variables used versus which ones we ought to look at, then this is a great business read on the plane or the train or even on your couch like I did. They could present them with an exciting case study where teams need to forecast say sales or demand for a line of goods. I can see how some economists might take Ellis' book the wrong way. He is not attacking any theory, he is simply raising some questions. See which team actually comes up with the best fitted results while one team specifically is asked to implement Ellis' approach. (ooops.I guess every body has one these days).:o)

This is an excellent book on the economics that drive the stock market. There was a big down turn in real wages back in Sept. There is a lot of insight to be gained from this book. Once you get the concepts in the book (real wages drives consumer spending, consumer spending drives the market) you have to download data from various Govt. Analysis and you have the entire package. web sites to keep your own data up to date. This is not a casual read, this book is meant to be studied. 2007 pointed to a downward market.

Ellis has a site for this book but the last time the charts were updates was on January 2008. You have to keep the data updated monthly. Combine this with Martin Zweig Winning on Wall Street and some Tech. The blog www.investorknowledgebase.org discusses some topics in this book.

Second, the often-quoted recession fears may be used in a totally different method to make your investing decisions. We all want to have as much data as possible when investing in the stock market, but we want to also spend our efforts efficiently. Ellis places a very high emphasis on consumer spending, which is not a surprise given that he was Goldman Sachs' lead retail analyst for many years. First, using charts and year-over-year percentages helps simplify the analysis needed to analyze the stock market. I think this is a great book for those who want to know more about the overall strategy of the stock market. Without going into significant detail, Ellis shows how a single economic indicator - personal consumption expenditures - plays a significant role in the overall economy and stock prices.

There were a few sections with very technical prose that requires a second reading, but these are few and far between. Joseph Ellis gives us an outstanding framework to understand how we can take common, public data and create ways to track the broad market. Ellis writes in a very simple and readable style. Ellis spend the majority of the book outlining the relationships between different variables such as inflation, tax policy, and the S&P to show a different approach of how to analyze economic data. I left with two key takeaways. It is clear that Ellis is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about this book.

Seasoned traders may not learn as much from the book, but Ellis' contrarian viewpoints at least allow one to look at market data in a different way.