January 16, 2026
Michel de Nostredame, Nostradamus, or Nos if you’re nasty, was a 16th-century astrologer, doctor, enemy of the church and bearded soothsayer who has been credited with foretelling the Great Fire of London, Hitler’s rise to power, the September 11 attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of Queen Elizabeth and Pope Francis, and the powerful earthquake that rocked Japan on New Year’s Day 2024 to name a few.
Known as the “prophet of doom,” Nostradamus’ decidedly dark worldview was shaped by a steady diet of Old Testament brimstone and the trauma of losing his wife and young children to plague. Unable to cure the ones he loved most, it appears he set out to forewarn the rest of us through his revelations of ruin.
Nostradamus was also a crank and a weirdo and creepy. I mean, look at that picture. Kind of like that uncle who would show up on some holiday once each year and you just wished he hadn’t.
OK, the Tale of the Nostradamus Tape. He issued 942 prophecies. The verses are written in a cryptic, ambiguous style mixing French, Latin, Greek, and Italian, often with anagrams and obscure references. This vagueness has allowed people throughout history to interpret them as predicting everything from the French Revolution to World War II to modern events, though skeptics argue the prophecies are so vague they can be retrofitted to almost any major event after the fact.
Let’s Nostradamus something. I’ll make one up with Claude AI help:
When the iron bird falls from eastern skies,
The two great powers shall tremble in their sleep,
The red serpent devours its own tail thrice,
While children of the sun count days in weep.
Whoop! Me, Nostradamus, Nostradamus me.
ï “Iron bird” – Could mean an airplane, a missile, a drone, a satellite, or even something metaphorical
ï “Eastern skies” – Which east? From whose perspective? How far east?
ï “Two great powers” – Any two nations, empires, or organizations at any point in history
ï “Red serpent” – Could symbolize communism, China, a dragon, Mars, blood, revolution, or danger
And so forth. This type of cryptic, multi-layered imagery is exactly what makes Nostradamus’s prophecies so “successful.” They’re so ambiguous that after almost any major event, people can look back and say “See! He predicted it!” The vagueness ensures the prophecy can never really be proven wrong, only reinterpreted.
Well, some people believe in prophecy, others believe in the ability to foresee the future. We all seem to have a craving to latch onto nearly anything that might provide some semblance of certainty to ease our anxieties or direct our money.
I’ve spent 50 years reading financial “forecasts” and I have to say I read fewer and fewer, the older I get. At least about the general economy or the direction of the stock market (“Sell everything!” Sure). Or should I say the more experience I accrue means I need to read less of them. At best, a forecast is an educated guess as to what’s coming. They should all be prefaced with the Working Profit Forecast Disclaimer:
“Assuming the facts don’t change from today…”
Because that’s the problem, right? The facts do change and then, the forecaster scrambles to “update” his forecast. Easy enough to blame the changed circumstances, not the forecast nor the forecaster. Well, ummm, you know, maybe work on that one?
So, our friend Nos followed the correct rules for prophecy and forecasting if one wants to get and maintain credibility. Here is how to get a forecasting reputation. The rules are as follows:
Forecast often.
I can’t emphasize this one enough. You just gotta get out there with a bunch. Best is if you have so many they can fill a book. This accomplishes a couple of things which we’ll get to, but I’m telling you here if you’re just getting started, prophecy-wise, you must be prolific. Because, if for no other reason…
You want to remind people of your successful guesses which you will label as forecasts.
You see this a lot in financial advertisements:
“We picked Nvidia at $0.22 and now we have something even better!”
Of course, the reader is unmercifully teased. They must subscribe! To find out. This is akin to the confidence game played by fortune tellers. You plunk down $10 and she examines your palm and then says, “And you will be murdered if you go to…” (begins to cough) “I’m sorry, I can’t go on.” And then you shove another $10 across the table and that $10 is like Nyquil to the cough and she proceeds…
Now what is signal here is this: They really did pick Nvidia at twenty-two cents. Matter of fact, they called it an “All world takes me home trade!”
“It’s right here!” (He is stabbing at the newsletter with that pick in it).
OK, well, here is what he doesn’t say: He also picked 452 other stocks of which 389 are in bankruptcy, another few haven’t done anything, a couple were worth the lift. Which leads to my next piece of advice:
Having made a lot of guesses you want to bury the bad ones.
Just let ‘em die of neglect. Don’t ever even hint at their existence. Just deep-six them as best you can and focus on your few winners, which is, let us face it, a lot more fun!
Never, ever forecast without a safety net.
You always, without exception, want to give yourself an escape hatch, just in case some stupidity comes barreling back at you:
Write out your forecast, perhaps 1000 words. And near the end, or better yet in the fine print, you write “Of course should inputs #2, 4, 7 or 9 not meet my expectation, the forecast
would need remodeling.” See, if you’re horribly wrong, you say, “But see, right here, I accounted for that possibility! Not on me! There! My perfect record intact!”
Look, if you believe in Nos, you must answer this simple question:
Where did he get his material?
Do you believe there was a kind of medieval Siri, dropping this stuff on him every day? Do you believe one of the angels would stop in for breakfast, leaving a few prophecies behind for the eggs and bacon? Do you believe God “told him” to write this stuff? Do you believe he had a good friend who actually created the prophecies but who remains anonymous and unknown…that Nos just stole his stuff from him? Or do you believe he was an alien creature and after doing his duty by warning Mankind, levitated back up into the sky and disappeared forever?
Look, this guy was a weirdo and probably a bit crazy.
But we gotta hand it to him. He was the Father of Forecasting and created a business that the Oracle at Delphi would have been proud of. I mean, people are still reading him 500 years later, which is something I do not believe I’ll have as my legacy, popularity-wise.
So, who am I to criticize success?
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
