The rapid development of machine learning (ML) provides new tools for predicting financial-economic time series. However, this paper argues that, from the perspective of time series, machine learning prediction is merely a one-step forecasting, which is usually good but of limited use. This study evaluates the predictive capability of machine learning methods by filtering multi-step forecasts of several models on datasets of two frequencies: US monthly unemployment rate and daily volatility data of exchange- traded fund (ETF) price. Our results show that:First, for one-step forecasting, all models exhibit good predictability; among them, ML methods are not apex forecasters, and several nonlinear statistical time series models outperform MLs.Second, MLs are not good forecasters when it comes to multistep forecasting. Except the deep learning method known as long short-term memory (LSTM), other ML methods and econometric time series models show themselves as poor forecasters. Moreover, although LSTM outdid itself in forecasting, its performance requires a deeply and properly trained pattern recognition from the network loops, it is not only time-consuming, but also unpredictable.