The question is: are all the variables associated with long-term investing (economic cycles, political risk, disruption, etc.) actually systemically forecastable or are the likes of Warren Buffet just glorified noise traders?,(reply>), None of what you mentioned is likely systematically forecastable, but Warren Buffett is definitely not trying to forecast those things. The order of magnitude of the things you mentioned on a time scale of years, and Warren is trying to estimate fair value realized over decades