Energy magnate J. Paul Getty’s formula for success was “Wake up early, work hard, strike oil!” Energy analysts generally are awake early and work hard but have not exactly struck oil in their unfortunate forecasts this past year as oil and gas prices hit new lows every day despite near-universal predictions of dramatic price spikes over the last few months.
Their recipe for failure is to quickly issue new forecasts claiming to have always been right, reifying the old prognostication strategy that “if you can’t predict accurately, then predict often.”
