2016 Prognostication: Final Post and WINNER

12. Stocks (December 30)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average index is currently at around 17,500. How will stocks do in this election year?

What will be the year-end close for the Dow?
a. under 16,000
b. 16,000 to 16,750
c. 16,750 to 17,500
d. 17,500 to 18,250
e. 18,250 to 19,000
f. greater than 19,000

The final close for the Dow is 19,762.60, making it a great bull year for stocks. The market was especially entranced with Donald Trump in the White House, anticipating infrastructure spending and higher interest rates. Only two people thought stocks would do this well: Miriam S. and Missy A. You would all be richer if you had their help investing your money.

Final Leader Board

Stacey C. managed to stave off a rash of deaths in December, which was the only thing that could have toppled him once he got so many things right in November. There were some deaths toward the end of the year, but they were not the correct deaths. Some wags are saying that Betty White won the 2016 Hunger Games by outlasting Prince, David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, et al., but Quiz enthusiasts know it's Beverly Cleary and Kirk Douglas who are the strongest survivors of all. They each turned 100 this year and continue as answers A and B in the 2017 Prognostication Quiz. Betty White is all the way down at K. (Get your entries in, by the way!)

Rank	Score	Name
1	8	Stacey C.
2	7	Sarah T.
3	7	Nadir Y.
4	7	Liz K.
5	6	Larry A.
6	6	Chris M.
7	6	Ellen Y.
8	6	Stuart P.
9	6	Grant M.
10	6	Michael A.
11	6	Jason C.
12	6	Ron D.
13	5	John E.
14	5	Aidan M.
15	5	Peter B.
16	5	Adrian C.
17	5	Ramy Y.
18	5	Rachel H.
19	5	Sarah S.
20	5	Russell V.
21	5	Sarah M.
22	4	Katie M.
23	4	Gemma D.
24	4	Marcus S.
25	4	Collette T.
26	4	Rachel F.
27	4	Janet C.
28	4	Keila B.
29	4	Tina A.
30	4	Matthew D.
31	4	Pete C.
32	4	Miriam S.
33	3	Cameron M.
34	3	Ben S.
35	3	Jeff C.
36	3	Gloria T.
37	3	Stephanie A.
38	3	Eric M.
39	3	Adam K.
40	3	Chris C.
41	3	Zhiqi Q.
42	3	Dylan S.
43	3	Missy A.
44	2	Dave S.
45	2	Valerie M.
46	1	Zachary S.

WINNER

Our winner this year is Stacey C., who toyed with Liz K. for nearly the entire year, lurking right behind her before sprinting ahead at the very end. Liz faltered on the Presidential election and on the Atlantic hurricane season while Stacey nailed them one after the other, driving each one home with aplomb. (I'm going to stop mixing metaphors now.)

Stacey was too stunned from the news of his victory to comment. Either that or he was traveling, which he does a lot. Or maybe he has moved again. He's moved from the US to England to Hong Kong since I've known him. That reminds me that Stacey wins a deluxe gift basket and I'm bitter that I have to ship it to Hong Kong.

Okay! He finally responded: "I think my winning strategy was to recognize early on that Trump was tapping into something important to voters that all other candidates were ignoring. I wasn't a fan of his back then, but it seemed to me that he had the winning formula, and the DNC had the losing formula by backing Hillary. But luck was the biggest factor in my winning!"

RUNNER-UP

Sarah T. also guessed the difficult hurricanes question correctly, and earlier profited from the death of Shimon Peres. She also guessed that the Dow would end the year at 18,035. It went way higher than that, but the other two people at 7 points (Nadir Y. and the embattled Liz K.) were not as optimistic, and finished in third and fourth place, respectively. Sarah is also pleased as punch to have trounced her mother this year:

"Runner up is also first loser!  But I'm proud I beat my mom, shown here in the photo with me.  That's my 'I'm thinking so hard about the Prognostication Quiz face' in case you were wondering. For the rest of you who are hoping to win some day, I think it's taken me over 5 years to score more than 2 points. I've got nothing wise to say to you, except Go Pack Go!"

Sarah is a huge Packers fan, and always picks them to win in the Super Bowl question of the Quiz. She made one exception, for an incredibly strong Patriots team in 2011. So she lost then, too, when the Packers won the Super Bowl to spite her. She seems to have figured out the best way to prepare for the Quiz is to close your eyes and meditate every time someone wants to take your picture. Classic advice.

BIGGEST LOSER

At the bottom of it all is young Zachary S., who finished in the basement with 1 point. It's too bad for him that he didn't tie anyone, because he demolished everyone on the tie-break. His guess was 19,658, a mere 105 points away from the actual final close. The only other contestants within 1,000 of the final close were Larry A. (739 points away) and John E. (875 points away). This is especially notable since Zachary is our youngest entrant. So young, in fact, that his father (Ben S.) had to write a computer program to let Zachary pick randomly. The only parental knowledge that creeped in was that Ben bounded the Dow Jones guess to between 15,000 and 20,000. Zachary's  random pick of 19,658 was way higher than anyone else's guess, but it won the day. I hope the family invested Zachary's piggy bank in stocks for the year.