About
FX4casts has been helping financial officers make more profitable and prudent decisions for managing currency risks, budgeting and planning since 1986. Its consensus currency forecasts for 70 currencies have become industry benchmarks against which to evaluate forecasts from other sources.
KEY PERSONNEL
Marsha Kameron
Publisher and Chief EconomistMs. Kameron is the publisher of FX4casts and has worked with FX4casts for the past 25 years as chief economist. Previously, Ms. Kameron was an international economist with the Federal Bank of NY and JP Morgan, Chase. She earned her Master’s degree in Economics from Queens College, NY.
Alan Teck
Consultant and Publisher EmeritusDr. Alan Teck began publishing FX4casts in 1984 and remains a consultant on its staff. Previously, he was Director of Foreign Exchange Advisory Services at JP Morgan Chase with responsibility for profit centers in New York, London, Brussels and Hong Kong. Dr. Teck earned his masters and doctorate degrees from the Department of Economics at Columbia University and completed the Executive Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
Paul Spindel
Information TechnologyPaul Spindel is responsible for building and maintaining the computer models that are used to develop the consensus forecasts. He is the former Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Technology at Columbia University and has been involved in the computer industry for more than 35 years. Mr. Spindel holds engineering degrees from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
What Subscribers Say
"FX4casts saves a lot of time as it provides forecasts for currencies, interest rates and economic indicators for all major and many minor countries all in one place. I can go quickly to countries of immediate interest instead of looking through numerous sources that are less timely and less reliable."
"We found that averaging a large number of independent currency forecasts produced better results than those of any of the individual forecasts in the group. We no longer have to do this as FX4casts does it for us with a much large group and better results."
"Our job is to advise people making decisions for our financial markets department. FX4casts is one of our best sources. We particularly value the consensus currency expectations and indications of risk."
"FX4casts provides our FX trading department, which focuses on short-term trading decisions, with information that is useful when answering clients’ questions about the outlook for intermediate- and longer-term time periods."
"FX4casts is useful in our fixed-income and exposure management decisions. We evaluate the consensus forecasts and the confidence intervals and how they change from month to month."
"By providing a consensus of expectations, we have a higher level of comfort in FX4casts than forecasts of individual organizations, which vary widely."
STUDIES CONFIRM SUCCESS
Survey Data on Exchange Rate Expectations. Paper by Professors Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard, and Menzie Chinn, University of California. “We find some ability in the survey data to predict future movements in exchange rates (and in the right direction!)… The results are based on data from FX4casts. In Monetary Policy, Capital Flows and Financial Market Developments in the Era of Financial Globalization, edited by William Allen and David Dickinson.
Predictability in Financial Markets: What do Survey Expectations Tell US? National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper by Philippe Bacchette and Elmer Mertens, University of Lausanne, and Eric van Wincoop, University of Virginia. “We find systematic evidence of excess return predictability in the foreign exchange market...Moreover, the predictability of expectational errors coincides with the predictability of excess returns.” This study uses FX4casts consensus currency and interest-rate forecasts from August 1986 through July 2005.
Returns to Following Currency Forecasts, Patrick Lehner, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, John Okunev and Derek White, Principal Global Investors. This study evaluates FX4casts consensus currency forecasts from 1986-2011 Part of the summary say: “By focusing on the extreme currencies, it was found that from 1995 through 2003, a return of 57 basis points a month could be earned… Returns earned by following the consensus recommendations increased greatly when technical and/or interest rate signals give similar rankings. For example, when twelve-month currency forecasts agree with technical and interest rate signals, the average monthly return jumped to 174 basis points.” The complete study is on www.ssrn.com.
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