Traditionally, newspapers and other publications have run contests that involve guessing where the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, or “Dow”) will end up next Dec. 31. The winner usually gets a free subscription, or something like that.
I’ve been entering a national financial publication’s annual forecasting contest for several years now. A couple years ago, I got pretty excited when the Dow actually crossed my entry number on December 31, it but kept going and ended about 25 to 30 points higher than my number, which isn’t close enough to win a national contest with thousands of entries. But that was nothing compared with what happened this week.
This year, as of Tuesday, my entry was over 150 points too low, and I figured, well, that’s that. Then, spectacularly, the Dow dropped 160 points on Wednesday and closed just 3 points off my guess! My contest entry, submitted back in January 2014, was 17,826, and the Dow closed on Dec. 31, 2014, at 17,823. That’s like getting a hole-in-one in golf! To give dumb luck its due, all I did was get it on the green, and from there, the wind blew it into the cup. But still … !!!
As I seem to be pretty good at this, you might be interested in what I think the DJIA will do this year. It gained about 7.2% in 2014, and the average guess of Wall Street analysts is 6% for 2015; I guessed slightly lower at 5.825% — my contest entry for 2015 is 18,861. You can check back a year from now to see if I got it onto the green again, or whacked it into the rough where it’s stuck in a tree somewhere.
If you’ve never seen the movie, “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” it’s worth watching just for the scene where Matt Damon has to hit the ball out of the rough from behind a tree. Or you can watch that scene here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mk2Tca88Xo
See? If he can do it and I can do it then you can do it! You just have to get your head into your game, whatever game you’re playing (and part of life isn’t a game of sorts?).
