Earnings Growth of 1.7% in Q4

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Q4 '14 Average Earnings Growth: 1.7%

Average Prediction: 1.3%

Number of Correct Forecasts: 35/462

Weakest Yen to Dollar Rate: 121 (5th Jan)

Competition Progress: 18.5% complete

Average earnings growth for the final 3 months of 2014 compared to the same three months a year earlier was 1.7%, up from 1.2% in the third quarter of the year, but down from 1.8% in the three months to November.

Only 7.5% of our forecasters correctly predicted this rate of growth, with 84% saying that earnings would be growing slower at the end of the year.  Our average prediction was much lower, at only 1.3%, reflecting the general opinion back in December that earnings growth would continue to be slow and steady.

Of the three Titans in our official competition, LSE's Michael McMahon was closest, with a forecast of 1.5%. Along with his unemployment predictions, this helped increase his lead over the other two forecasters. Cambridge's John Llewellyn forecast a rate of 1.4%, while Oxford's Kate Barker predicted just 1.2%.  As you can see from the graph, Michael was consistently the most optimistic on earnings growth, and admitted at the time that he was worried he was being too negative and that earnings growth could be even stronger than he forecast, which has so far turned out to be true.

Click here for a summary of the results so far, or here for the full standings.