Paid to be reckless

In a familiar year-end ritual, Wall Street's fancy strategists have been gathered and asked what they predict for next year.  Without shock S&P values approaching 3,000 are starting to come in for 2018.  Volatility is in the 9%-range (with actual yet to rise to match this low implied!), and no one dares being left behind this ostensible bull-only phenomenon. 

But one is admonished to reflect on how these now-daredevils have done historically, near key market periods in our past (our largest known dataset, also freely seen by millions of people).  We also note this doesn't include other events strategists completely missed.  Such as the record mini-crashes (single-day risk of 5% or more followed by a recovery), which were seen both through the late 1990s and through 2016.  Or in 2011, where only 10% of strategists had predicted a negative year (an actually highly volatile year that ended flat).  The bottom line is if you listen too hard to what they have to say as we forge ahead, then you will soon enough be mightily disappointed at how little they (or anyone) can know about how the pricing model behaves.