In football and finance, accurate predictions are the difference between victory and defeat.
Here at Predictive Analytics Group, we love building predictive models that help our clients increase revenues and reduce risk. But we also admit to being “nerds” with analytics; in fact, we love to build models in our free time that make our hobbies more fun and, along the way, provide insights that help us build better models for our clients.
Take professional football for example.
A few of our programmers at PAG have built an NFL predictive model whose picks exceeded 55% against the spread in each of the past three seasons. Because we love to mitigate risk, we identified what we call premium picks (the picks we feel best about each week) and they’ve delivered 72% of the time against the spread. In addition, the model has picked game winners at an average rate of 67% over the past three years, with the premium picks running closer to 80%.
At one level, we could say nobody was more surprised than us at this success. But to be fair, we have a lot of confidence in our ability to find interesting ways to create models that work for our clients.
Now we will say when we first started talking about this, our model creators agreed to do this with one hand tied behind their backs. This exercise is, after all, is for fun so they agreed not to use our proprietary GOBLIN data and analytics platform, which would give them an unfair advantage we reserve for just our clients.
We publish our predictions each Thursday morning for followers of our LinkedIn Company Page. We share them because we see this model as proof of concept for our analytics capabilities in the business world. But we always tell clients – and we’re boldfacing for emphasis here – that NFL predictions are for entertainment purposes and not intended as gambling advice.
What we’ve found – with the NFL picks and with our clients — is the more data you bring to the table, the easier it is to make the right choice. Our NFL model has evolved to include player- and team-level data and where the team played the week before.
PAG predicted three of the four conference finalists by Week 9 in three of the past five years, We also predicted the Bengals would win the Big Game in Week 7 in 2021 — at a time when the team was a longshot to win (+4500) or even play in the game (+3,200) – and only barely lost the game.
While predicting NFL games is fun, the real power of our analytics shines in the business world. Imagine if we applied our modeling skills to your business AND were able to bring our robust GOBLIN analytics platform to the table (remember, it doesn’t touch these predictions right now).
NFL games offer high-uncertainty situations, and predictive analytics can help manage this uncertainty by providing probability-based forecasts. Businesses face similar uncertainties, and predictive analytics can offer insights that reduce reliance on intuition and improve decision-making accuracy.
Predictive models are continually evolving, integrating more variables and improving accuracy. They can help you anticipate market trends, customer behavior, and operational challenges, to see patterns and make strategic decisions that can lead to a competitive advantage.
We can help your institution anticipate market shifts by analyzing such relevant financial indicators as initial jobless claims, building permits, nonfarm payroll reports, yield curves, volatility indices, credit spreads, and mutual fund flows.
Banks, fintech, and credit unions leaders are calling us to talk about their concerns with rising delinquencies and losses, about portfolio sales and purchases, and about forecasting. We tell them we can reduce their stress by using the same predictive analytics we’ve used to predict hundreds of upsets in recent years.
We may not adjust our predictions at halftime, but PAG enables our clients to recalibrate their strategies in real time. Imagine adjusting your risk models or investment strategies as swiftly as a coach adapts to a sudden change in weather or an unexpected injury to a key player.
PAG can help businesses integrate real-time data analytics into their forecasting processes, much like NFL coaches adjust their strategies during games. We can help you respond quickly to changes in the market environment, identifying patterns and predicting future events. These models can help you make more informed decisions.
Think of market volatility as an unexpected blizzard in Buffalo, and regulatory changes as unexpected injuries to key players. Player performance and team dynamics can translate to employee productivity and organizational culture, respectively.
And just as NFL teams protect their playbooks, PAG ensures your data’s security and compliance with financial regulations, giving you peace of mind as you make game-changing decisions. Don’t let your competition intercept your market share. Schedule your exclusive demo of our GOBLIN platform this week and start calling the plays that will lead your institution to victory. Spots are limited, so act now to secure your competitive edge.
