Description
Softcover, 2023, exact facsimile of the 1930 original self-published by the author, 44 pp.
At the time this book was written, William Dunnigan had a P.O. Box at Stanford University and we believe that he was working within the University at some capacity. Much of Dunnigan’s work around this period was forecasting based on statistics and barometers. The book starts out with some notes concerning the revisions he made to his Composite Barometer due to reporting changes from the Federal Reserve Board. A table of these changes in included and provides an interesting data point from July 1930 as it prints Dunnigan’s 12 month forecasts and the actuals up to July.
In presenting this treatise the writer seeks to accomplish a two-fold purpose: On the one hand, this booklet is concerned with a presentation and examination of a forecasting method which would have successfully predicted, had it been available since January 1920, the direction of the net monthly movement of average stock prices in 102 of the past 120 months. This forecasting method (termed “the composite barometer method”) is one result of an original investigation engaged in by the writer wherein a study was made. of the monthly movements of each of 125 series of business data as related to subsequent monthly movements of average stock prices.
The other purpose of this treatise is to emphasize three facts which were statistically demonstrated in the writer’s research and which have, or should have , an important bearing upon any investing or trading program in the stock market. Briefly, these facts are: (1) Practically all of the popular barometers which are based upon current information (brokers’ loans, call money rates, pig iron production, freight-car loadings, etc.) exhibit absolutely no consistent relationship to the short-swings in stock prices; (2) Ultimate failure is almost certain for anyone attempting to forecast the minor movements of stock prices by one of even a few of the best barometers attempting to forecast the minor movements of stock prices by one or even a few of the best barometers, and (3) the investor or trader who believes he knows the immediate future of the market should always supplement that essential “knowledge” with either the acceptance of competent financial counsel or a personal study relative to individual stock values or opportunities. Rare, early Dunnigan publication.
Contents: Chapter I. Scope and Plan, The Value of Statistical Methods, Chapter II. The Value of Statistical Methods (Continued), The Necessity of Forecasting Average Stock-Price Movements, Chapter III. Statistical Research Reveals Common Fallacies, Chapter IV. The Composite Barometer Method.
ISBN-10: 1945574933
ISBN-13: 9781945574931
