Forecasts

There was a time, way back in the late 1990s, when coolhunting was still cool, when nearly every Madison Avenue ad agency wanted a resident hipster to interpret the spending habits of those inscrutable Gen-Xers. Then the Internet exploded, connecting everyone to everything in an instant, and suddenly, the art of predicting the next big trend got way more complicated.

For a while, J.C. Penney and Best Buy seemed to be doppelgangers. The two retailers struggled with intensifying competition after years of comfortable stagnation. Beset by Wall Street skepticism and shaky consumer loyalty, each made sweeping attempts at a turnaround. Both removed their controversial chief executives. But as the companies prepare to reveal first-quarter earnings this month, their roads may be diverging: Best Buy's results are expected to show a continuing recovery while J.C. Penney's are forecast to be dismal.

Despite the bad report card given forecasts of "psychics" ('Predictably, Psychics Botch '97 Forecasts," Jan. 2), I will make a prediction of my own. On Jan. 1, 2000, huge numbers of people with apocalyptic visions of the millennium will wake to the dawn, discovering that life will continue much as it had the year before. This will briefly shake their faith in what they thought they knew, but then they will realize that the third millennium of the Common Era begins with the year 2001, and they will go back to sleep contented.

The second day of searing temperatures and unseasonably strong Santa Ana winds kept firefighters busy Friday battling blazes that threatened homes in Ventura County, Glendale and Walnut, but the day ended with hope that cooling conditions would ease the siege. The day was filled with tense moments as the Springs fire lurched closer to homes near Thousand Oaks and a fast-moving blaze in Glendale prompted evacuations and temporarily shut down parts of a busy freeway interchange. Although the amount of burned acreage increased significantly Friday, the fires did not cause major damage to structures.

Though 2009 looks just as grim as 2008, organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show last week forecast a few rays of sunshine. The Consumer Electronics Assn. projected growth in organic LED displays, digital book readers, Blu-ray disc players and lightweight laptops called netbooks. Despite a projected 0.3% decline in overall consumer spending in 2009, the trade group said, people will continue to earmark a large chunk of their income for technology.

The sluggish economy is pushing analysts to slash their forecasts for auto sales this year. "Without a significant increase in incentive levels or a reversal of the economic woes, there isn't a compelling reason for those consumers sitting on the fence to return to dealer showrooms and purchase a vehicle," said Jeff Schuster, chief forecaster at J.D. Power & Associates. Schuster said plenty of people who have delayed purchases either need or want to buy new cars but are spooked by "economic and financial uncertainty.

After an almost two-year financial nose dive, the global airline industry appears ready to soar again. Three months after forecasting $2.8 billion in worldwide losses, a trade group for the world's airlines now predicts $2.5 billion in profits for 2010, with air travel demand and cargo traffic expected to grow faster than previously predicted. A report released Monday by the Montreal-based International Air Transport Assn. said passenger traffic worldwide is expected to grow 7.1% in 2010 over the previous year while cargo traffic will expand 18.5%.

Dicey. That's the word Doug Thompson used to describe the strenuous 11-mile hike to the summit of Mt. Whitney in October, a month of unpredictable weather that can make the first step up the trailhead near Thompson's rustic convenience store the start of a death trap. About 25,000 people ascend the 14,494-foot mountain each year, and "while a lot of them are physically strong, they don't always have much experience or the proper gear," he said. "A year ago this very week, we had a fatal accident up here.

Earnings expectations have fallen since early this year, according to First Call and IBES. Following are expectations for some key industries: The energy sector has been hit hard this quarter, with earnings expected to fall 24%, on average, from a year earlier, according to Chuck Hill, director of research at First Call, which tracks profit forecasts on Wall Street. With oil prices hitting nine-year lows this week, earnings at big oil companies such as Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp.

Western Digital Corp., the second-largest maker of computer hard-disk drives, raised its quarterly sales and profit forecasts after price cuts slowed. Revenue in the current quarter will climb to as much as $2.08 billion in the period, the company said in a regulatory filing. Earnings will increase to $1.02 to $1.06 a share. In November, the Lake Forest company forecast profit of 73 to 77 cents a share on sales of as much as $1.93 billion for the fiscal second quarter, which ends this month.

SAN FRANCISCO - LinkedIn Corp. has consistently beat Wall Street expectations since its initial public stock offering two years ago. The professional networking service did it again Thursday, reporting first-quarter revenue and net income that surpassed forecasts. But its outlook for the rest of the year fell below analyst expectations, disappointing investors and causing the stock to plunge in extended trading. The company also showed signs of slowing growth. LinkedIn shares, which closed up $6.85, or 3.5%, at $201.67, fell 10% to $181.30 in after-hours trading after the Mountain View, Calif., company released its first-quarter results.

Teams will fan out across the Sierra Nevada on Thursday to perform their final snow survey of the season, a closely watched rite of spring that helps determine how much water will flow to farms and cities in coming months. But 18,000 feet above the Sierra slopes, an airborne experiment is underway that could revolutionize that ritual. Starting in early April, researchers have made weekly flights over the upper Tuolumne River basin, taking sophisticated instrument readings of the snow depth and reflected sunlight.

Insurance giant WellPoint Inc. reported a 3% increase in first-quarter profit and raised its full-year outlook as the company prepares for major changes under the federal healthcare overhaul. WellPoint, which runs Anthem Blue Cross in California and health plans in 13 other states, said its results were lifted by a recent acquisition that helped boost enrollment of the nation's second-largest health insurer to nearly 36 million people. Investors cheered the results, bidding up WellPoint's shares $4, or 5.8%, to $73.33 in trading Wednesday.

Shares of biotech giant Amgen Inc. slumped as investors reacted to weaker-than-expected first-quarter sales. Shares of the Thousand Oaks company dropped $7.83, or 7%, to $104.93 in trading Wednesday. The company's stock had posted impressive gains until this week, up 65% in the last year. Amgen reported first-quarter results after the markets closed Tuesday. Its net income rose 21% to $1.4 billion, or $1.88 a share, from $1.2 billion, or $1.48, a year earlier. But analysts and investors focused much of their attention on Amgen's revenue growth, which came in lower than Wall Street's expectations.

The great Yogi Berra is said to have observed, "Predictions are difficult, particularly about the future" (or something very close to that). When UCLA history professor James Gelvin quoted Berra to that effect on Saturday, it served as a capstone to a wide-ranging discussion of the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Wait, scratch that. The term preferred by the panel of Mideast experts speaking at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was Arab Uprisings, not Arab Spring.

WASHINGTON -- The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its forecast for global economic growth this year from projections made three months ago, and warned policymakers that they could not relax their efforts as risks to the recovery remain. The organization projected the worldwide economy would grow at a 3.3% annual rate this year, down from a January forecast of 3.5%. The projection for 2014 also was trimmed, with growth now forecast at a 4% rate compared with a 4.1% forecast in January.

People worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmer's Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S. "Numb's the word," says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80% to 85% for its forecasts, which are prepared two years in advance. The almanac's 2009 edition, on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder-than-average temperatures this winter, with only the far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.

We have always found The Times to be a fair newspaper, worthy of its reputation. But I was somewhat disappointed to read the Dec. 15 editorial on the Orange County economy. While you accurately commented on the economic recovery underway in the county, the editorial failed to mention the economic forecasts of the Institute for Economic and Environmental Studies released in October 1996. Your paper in fact had covered the event in a major story. Since then other forecasts have basically followed the scenario that we had projected.

An avalanche sloughing off a Utah mountainside killed a state Department of Transportation avalanche forecaster while he was surveying snow levels near a popular winter recreation area, authorities reported. A co-worker last heard from 34-year-old Craig Patterson about  1:30 p.m. on Thursday. When the Park City man didn't come home from work, his family began to worry, said Justin Hoyal, a lieutenant with the Unified Police of Greater Salt Lake. Authorities got the call about 7:30 p.m., just before dark, Hoyal said.

WASHINGTON -- The World Trade Organization on Wednesday lowered its forecast for global trade growth in 2013, saying economic improvement in the U.S. would not be enough to offset Europe's struggles. The dimmer outlook for trade this year follows a historically poor 2012. Global trade expanded just 2% last year, down from 5.2% in 2011. Excluding years in which worldwide trade contracted, last year was the smallest annual increase since 1981, the WTO said. Growth will improve this year, but not as much as forecast last fall, the WTO said.