Market Prophets is an insightful and provocative guide to the financial forecasting business: an analysis of how the pundits succeed and fail in predicting the ups and downs of markets and economies. It asks if we should pay attention to these soothsayers and, if so, which ones?

"In Market Prophets, David Stamp enjoyably shows how fallible financial forecasts are. Yet the public demand for them, particularly by exactly the same politicians who claim to be most sceptical, shows no signs of abating. One needs a balanced judgment on the uses and abuses of economic forecasting. This book is good on the potential abuses of forecasts. I hope that he will also write a companion on how to use forecasts more sensibly."

- Charles Goodhart, Professor of Banking and Finance at the London School of Economics

Can the U.S. economy fully recover from the twin blows of September 11 and the technology crash, or will the prosperous 1990s fade to a distant memory for ordinary Americans?

If the United States stumbles, what hope is there for people across the industrial nations, let alone the hundreds of millions trying to escape poverty in the Third World?

Will Wall Street soar, crash or stagnate?

Are world interest rates heading up or down?

Is the euro’s nose-dive finally over and will Britain ever adopt the common currency?

Financial markets have spawned a forecasting industry to answer such questions serving everyone from private investors to multinational corporations, central banks and the world's governments.  But can anyone predict the seemingly unpredicatable?

Market Prophets is a guide to the financial forecasting business: an analysis of how the pundits succeed and fail in predicting the ups and downs of markets and economies.  It asks if we should pay attention to these soothsayers and, if so, which ones?