Each Sunday morning I buy The Sunday Age for my better half Sarah who likes to keep up to date with the Melbourne property market.  Although it is not good for my stress levels, I always ask Sarah to pass me the "Investor" lift out so I can see what rot is poisoning the minds of potential clients.

David Potts is a journalist who appears in the "Investor" lift out each week and it's fair to say I'm far from his biggest fan.  His articles are high on predictions and low on quality education.  But then again, to be be fair to David, he's not there to educate, his job is to write content that has the the punters coming back for more, so that the newspaper can sell advertising space.

So I was very interested to read his predication on interest rates on Sunday.  The full article is here, but as you can see from the graphic below he writes: "Economists, the market and the media are as one that interest rates will rise by 25 points on Tuesday"...



So my question to you David is: do you feel like an idiot? 

The truth is he won't because has he's been wrong many times before and he'll continue to get it wrong again in the future. 

The moral of the story is we don't listen to this guy or anyone else who thinks they can predict the future and we don't advise you do either.  Mr Potts will have you believe that being a successful investor means having the ability to predict the future, but it's not.

We can't control the future, we can't control markets and we can't control the media.  Successful investors focus their energy into things they can control, such as spending less than you earn, understanding how markets work and how to use them to your advantage and viewing the newspaper as a source of entertainment, not a source of education.  In my mind Mr Potts is nothing more than a court jester...so David, on with the show!