A financial forecast is an estimate of future financial outcomes for a company or project, usually applied in budgeting, capital budgeting and / or valuation; see Financial modeling #Accounting. Depending on context the term may also refer to listed company (quarterly) earnings guidance.For a country or economy, see Economic forecast. There is an extensive literature on the accuracy of analyst forecasts of revenue, profit and share price developments of companies. In general, this literature shows that analysts do not produce better forecasts than simple forecasting models