Ahead of the Curve

Preface and Acknowledgments

Almost everyone interested in the economy, from lay businesspeople and investors to the most sophisticated CEOs and investment managers, feels lost in the morass of anecdotal and often conflicting economic reports that fill daily newspapers and TV news broadcasts. While the accumulated flow of reports usually provides an underlying tone—“the economy is strong” or “the economy is getting weaker”—little of it is accessibly analytical, and the audience is generally left confused. The resulting sense of uncertainty in dealing with the economic and investment outlook is a universal problem for business managers, investment professionals, and individual investors.

This book presents a methodology I developed over a twenty-five-year ...