Series
There's a war in Iran. Innocent people are dying. Oil markets are swinging wildly and the average person's financial future is tangled up in forecasts and bond yields they never signed up to understand. I needed to do something with the helplessness that wasn't refreshing the news every five minutes. So for eight weeks, I'm publishing weekly Brent crude forecasts. Point estimate, confidence intervals, scenario probabilities. All public. Systematic Bayesian updating versus Goldman Sachs, who changed their forecast four times in six days. Not because I think I'll win. Because processing uncertainty out loud beats doom scrolling through a crisis I can't control.
The full methodology behind an 8-week oil price forecasting experiment. Five scenarios, Bayesian updating, public scoring, and why I'm doing this during a war instead of doom scrolling.
Starting an 8-week experiment. Can systematic Bayesian updating beat Goldman Sachs' oil forecasts during a geopolitical crisis? Week 1 methodology and baseline.
First Brent crude forecast locked at $99.47. Escalation probability 45%. Eight weeks of public oil price predictions during the Iran war starts now.
My Brent crude forecast overshot by $13.75. The naive baseline won. Week 1 of an 8-week oil price forecasting experiment during the Iran war, scored honestly.
Brent crude forecast for 27 March 2026, $108.16. The model corrected from Week 1's overshoot. But Trump's Strait of Hormuz ultimatum could break the entire framework.
$1.32 off. The model nailed the price but the naive baseline still won. Week 2 of an 8-week oil price forecasting experiment during the Iran war, scored honestly.
Brent crude forecast for 2 April 2026, $118.88. Houthi strikes reopened, the price band broke, and Good Friday cuts the trading week short. The model's most aggressive call yet.
$9.83 off. Direction wrong for the first time. The model predicted up, Brent went down. Three weeks, three losses to baseline. But the physical market is telling a different story.
Brent crude forecast for 10 April 2026. Trump posted 'Praise be to Allah' on Easter Sunday and threatened Iranian power plants by Tuesday. Physical crude hit $141. The model is at $123.53.
It was 23:48 on Tuesday. My forecast was locked at $123.53. Twelve minutes earlier, Trump agreed to suspend the bombing. I watched the oil forecast decay in real time.