Few people trust a weather forecaster to be right 100% of the time, because it is impossible to predict the weather 100% of the time. This is because there are many factors involved with weather that can be tracked and analyzed, but not completely accurately predicted. With a stock market forecast it is the same way. Although it is possible for stock market analyzers to study past trends and current events in order to come up with an idea as to where the market is headed, there are far too many unknowns to be able to always accurately predict where the stock market is going.
There are several reasons that many stock market forecasts are often wrong. The main factor is, just like with top athletes, good ones are rare. There are a lot of mediocre forecasters and only a small group of good ones. Also, many analyzers tend to over-think and over-predict to the point of missing the big picture. The main thing to keep in mind as you hear and try to utilize a stock market forecast is that it's not going to be completely right 100% of the time. This being said, there are ways to use the stock forecast to your advantage.
The best way to utilize a forecast is to realize that the short-term forecast is going to be more accurate than a long-term one. It is better to look at the stock market forecasts that only predict a few weeks or months ahead. This means that they are probably focused mainly on current trends to see what the market might do in the immediate future. When you find a market forecast that promises to predict where the market is going to be in a few years, you can probably disregard it. Because of rapid changes in technology and world events, there's no way to know what will be happening twelve months from now.
Another way to make sure that you are getting a fairly accurate stock market forecast is to check the error rate on that particular one. There are websites that you can look at that can tell you how accurate that forecast has been in the past. Obviously, you want to find one with a low error rate for the best results. This way, you will lower the chances of that forecast being wrong. But why stop with just one source?
Ideally, you would find several different sources to reference, and find the average of all of these, and use that as your own personal stock market forecast. This is the best way to reduce errors, because you can find different independent sources to put together into a more accurate prediction. If you find that one source is consistently accurate in one area, you can factor that in. This way, you are in charge of your own fate, and aren't relying on just one source for your market forecast.