View Single Post
Old 01-25-2008, 06:32 AM   #7
Cali Coug
Senior Member
 
Cali Coug's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 5,996
Cali Coug has a little shameless behaviour in the past
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jay santos View Post
Sure there's a statistical reason an average of polls is more accurate than an individual poll.

Same concept of a mutual fund reduces risk compared to buying one stock.
Come on, Jay. You know better than that. What is the margin of error of the polls being combined? Is it the same in each? If not, how do you weight one over the other? Can you be certain each used the same methodology? Do you have any idea if the polls are at all comparable?

In a mutual fund, you are hedging against the chance that one stock fails by diversifying the portfolio. In other words, you are going to get some crap stocks and some good stocks (you hope, though that isn't guaranteed either). Why would you expect a combination of polls to be more "accurate?" It may hedge against bad polls, and it may include some good polls. Or they could all be crap, or they could all be good, and averaging them could dilute the influence of the "right" poll.

Last edited by Cali Coug; 01-25-2008 at 06:47 AM.
Cali Coug is offline   Reply With Quote