Wall Street stock investor Peter Lynch wrote “Peter’s Principle #4” in his book Beating the Street (1993): “You can’t see the future through a rear view mirror.” This is another way of saying that past investment performance is not necessarily an indication of future results.

American investor Warren Buffett has another “rearview mirror” saying: “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”


Wikipedia: Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch (born January 19, 1944(1944-01-19)) is a Wall Street stock investor. He is currently a research consultant at Fidelity Investments. Lynch graduated from Boston College in 1965 and earned a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968.

Google Books
Beating the Street
By Peter S. Lynch and John Rothschild
New York, NY: Simon & Schuster
1993
Pg. 41:
This leads to Peter’s Principle #4:
You can’t see the future through a rear view mirror.

Google News Archive
21 March 1993, Milwaukee (WI) Journal, “Beguiled: Lynch still ‘lusts for stocks’” by Jonathan Yenkin, pg. D3, col. 3:
He’ll spend a few days a week meeting young Fidelity stock analysts, passing along his “Peter’s Principles” for investing.

Among them: never invest in any idea you can’t illus trate with a crayon,” and can’t see the future through a rearview mirror.”

The Motley Fool
Peter Lynch’s Principles
By Vince Hanks
June 29, 2000
(...)
4. “You can’t see the future through a rearview mirror.”
History will not repeat itself exactly. There may be trends that are repeated and some coincidences may occur, but depending on a reproduction of the past will most likely be disastrous. Use the past for what it is — a track record, not a road map.

Google Books
Swing Trading For Dummies
By Omar Bassal
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
2008
Pg, 32:
Academics and some portfolio managers hold the belief that Peter Lynch, the legendary Fidelity mutual fund manager, succinctly expressed: “You can’t see the future through a rearview mirror.”