The study analyses the characteristics of professional exchange rate forecasts for the u20ac/US-$ rate. The results indicate that the quality of forecasts produced by profes-sional economists is rather poor and incompatible with the rational expectations hy-pothesis. This dismal result is according to our analysis attributed to the fact that professional forecasts are to a large extend influenced by actual changes in exchange rates. A reasonable explanation for this behaviour can be derived from the behav-ioural finance literature. According to the anchoring heuristic decision processes are often dominated by available pieces of information even if they are obviously of no relevance.
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