Turdites predictive powers... guessing the next NFP

Let’s measure our collective wisdom! In my day job, I work with predictive models (and yes, I have spent much time trying to find a model to predict prices... and no, I haven’t cracked the code yet!) and one method is to just smooth out a large number of different estimates.

I thought it would be interesting to get together some numbers that had been put forward in hat contests to see the relationship between those guesses and actual outcomes. Problem is that we aimed to not double up price guesses. Ideally, multiple guesses at the same price would be ok.

I am really curious to see if we can collectively get close to a number ahead of time, and why not try next NFP?

We can just measure against the initial report, not any revisions. Here is some background of initial numbers:

Jan 2012: 200,000

Feb 2012: 227,000

March 2012: 120,000

Jan 2013: 157,000

Feb 2013 : 256,000

March 2013 ----- What do you guess the next non-farm payroll number will be?

It might be best if you drop me a PM with your guess – that way no one will influence anyone else and this would be the better way to gather estimates.

I’ll put it all together and we’ll see how we go!

cheers everyone!