OK - I'll admit it - I did engage in a little bit of hyperbole.

But you have to admit that "at best worthless" has a better ring to it than "at best, when combined with a qualitative analysis of the model itself, and some testing with out of sample data, can be a useful tool in decision making".

You are right that no investment bank will go anywhere near this.

When I used to work in the financial services industry we used to call this "data mining". The result is usually at best worthless and at worst dangerous as it is so often misused.

It's worth remembering the saying with data: "if you look hard enough, you can find anything you want to".