Incoprea Theory
Vol. XXXI · 129

Theory 129/The past predicts the future

Selection Destroys Prediction

The claim

Models selected for past performance overfit, so the best historical model is often the worst forecaster.

01Mechanism

Selection rewards fitting noise as well as signal.

02Prediction

Out-of-sample rank should anti-correlate with in-sample rank at high complexity.

03Refutation

Rank preserved would remove overfitting.