Some newspaper headings are not meant to be taken seriously. The local newspaper will invariably predict a victory for the local team, even if the first 15 are barely clinging to life in hospital.

The business pages are more reputable of course, but a glance through some old articles suggests that there may be room for improvement.

A regular Irish heading when multinationals announce worldwide cutbacks, is a statement that all the pain will occur elsewhere.

Take for example: "No cuts at Apple's Cork plant" or "Compaq downsizing not to affect Irish subsidiary", and you get my drift.

Another headline we see regularly is: "Estate agents predict continuing market buoyancy". This may well be true, but it brings to mind the vendor's halftime call of "Anyone for the last few choc-ices".

Another example from the they-would-say-that-wouldn't-they department, involves stockbrokers' forecasts. These usually indicate either that stockmarket growth will continue, or that the end of the downturn is just around the corner.

Brokers are in the business of selling shares, and of selling people on the idea that a big jump in share prices is coming right up. More surprising perhaps, is that the hype is printed in newspapers without any financial health warning.

Cleaning out the office the other day I came across business headlines from April 1998 including: "Irish bank shares - still some way to go" at a time when AIB was the equivalent of €12.51. Seventeen months later the price was actually lower (having peaked and retreated).

Another dodgy forecast came from June 28th, 1998: "ISEQ due another surge before year end". The article went on to explain that "most of the forecasters believe that the Irish Stock Market is set for a jump by the end of the year [1998]". At that time the ISEQ index was 5,083; but it is under 5,000 at the time of writing.

In fairness to the above forecasters, most people's guesstimates were pretty similar at that time. Share prices go down as well as up and behave somewhat erratically in the short term, as unforeseen events, human greed and fear change the picture continually. Thus, any short-term forecasts must be treated as only an educated guess. Too many unknowns occur for any short-term forecast to be really solid.

Unfortunately many potential investors do not have the benefit of financial training, and rely extensively on what they hear and read, and sometimes just what the headline says. Very few health warnings are given with shareprice forecasts, perhaps because of an unwarranted assumption of investors' financial astuteness.

Many investors thus have no idea that "the Fed raising interest rates", "the monthly inflation forecast", the Middle-East, the Balkans, Russian loan defaults, or an Islamic party's election performance can turn a near-term forecast upside down.

I have yet to hear a forecaster explain that their forecast will be useless if X,Y and Z occur, and to remind listeners that X, Y, & Z do occur regularly.

In the Republic, experts tend to move in packs on most issues, and if it turns out that everyone was wrong, previous forecasts are quietly forgotten about.

Thus television pundits give weighty opinions on what the markets are likely to do, giving an impression that they are 90 per cent certain of their forecasts. If they are later proved wrong, there seems to be little comeback. Their next TV appearance ignores the original disastrous forecast, and peddles another with an aura of near certainty as to what will happen.

The tendency to take the company's or broker's spin seems often to be too much for our media as a whole.

Take the heading: "Elan investors should have to suffer no pain", on May 3rd, 1998, a time when the stock price was $63 on the Nasdaq. The article explains that Vector Securities had "issued a 12-month target of $78 for the shares". Even allowing for Elan's recent stock-split, two shares at the time of writing are worth only $68.

A second example from April 19th, 1998: "Analysts very excited by CBT results" at a time when the stock had boomed up to $50. It is now around $26 at the time of writing. Obviously, there is a lot of water under the bridge since those headlines, and no one could have seen what was coming, but again I suggest that financial health warnings could have been advantageous to the small investor.

Spinning seems to generate newspaper headlines which purport to be factual but are actually only nonsense. Take this heading from June 7th, 1998: "Government rules out softening on Garda pay". The subsequent article explained: "Government sources have affirmed that there is no room for concessions in the negotiations to resolve the Garda pay dispute which are due to begin this week". Most readers will recall that the Government caved in shortly after this, leaving the papers to speak of the "Gardai bonanza".

Finally a quick look at politicians' forecasts as published on May 2nd, 1998; a time when we were still basking in the glow of the Good Friday Agreement. "Mitchell says assembly will work despite early teething problems with unionists" ran a familiar sounding heading. The article went on to give George Mitchell's optimistic view that "the new assembly should be up and running by the end of this year (1998), or early next year at the latest".

An interview with the Taoiseach was also reported in the same edition.

It stands the test of time rather better, and went as follows: "Don't expect decommissioning without RUC reform, says Ahern".

Paul Prendergast is an accounting lecturer in the Athlone Institute of Technology