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To: rharshman who wrote (110151)	1/2/2002 10:57:32 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

is a rear view mirror the correct way to forecast? well, my point is not how to forecast, but rather how accurate forecasts are. and the past two years are an example in which actual results were different from the forecasts. my point about the next five years is that today's forecasts are again likely to be wrong. i don't expect the next five years to necessarily be like the last two years, except in the sense that whatever people predict about them will be wrong (or if correct, just correct by luck, like a lottery number...). this gets into a much larger topic (statistical probabilities in investing) that i will address later (i can tell everybody's looking forward to that :) roflmao! (laffing at mysef) By the way, I did not mean to predict 30% compound growth. well, actually i think you did say that, since you said it added up to 3.7X today's figures (which is 30% compounded by 5 yrs). one point sometimes forgotten about the "magic of compounding numbers" is that the geometric average is always higher than the arithmetic average. e.g., 30x30x30x30x30 works out to more growth than 20x40x20x40x30. the first string is 30% compound growth; the second string is 30% average growth. and they ain't the same (but many investing books and stock promoters like some CEOs and analysts overlook this difference). that is another reason to shoot for consistency over shooting for the stars (both for companies and investors), and a key reason why diversification is important over the long run.