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Monday, January 04, 2010

Wither the arrows?

Andy Brough

There are so many headlines about which way the markets will go. '2010 will be a volatile year'; 'UK deficit warning from City economists'; 'Europe's chief executives see sluggish 2010'; 'Optimism rises for recruitment'... and so on ad infinitum.

I am reminded of a sage City fund manager, one Andy Brough, who had evidently had enough of personal finance journalists ringing him up to ask him his take on the market (this was back in 2004). His comment still stands in the annals of FT history:

'Look, we believe the markets could go up. But then again, they could go down. If not, they might go sideways.'

Quite.

4 comments:

Romeo Morningwood said...

Gadzooks talk about covering your ass!

This "recovery" is whisper thin and the veneer could peel off any second. The only encouraging thought that I can muster is that China has loaned the US so much money that the Chinois have to stay on course and keep lending. The East is still scratching their heads about hitching their horse to the West after watching the Wizards completely intercourse sound priciples in search of creating something from nothing.

The East is feeling fairly confident that they could do better but their great unwashed consumers aren't quite ready just yet.

The correction is coming..the great $hift is coming..all of the liquidity will get sucked offshore just before the tsunami wipes us out..one of these days...

Tuscan Tony said...

All true of course. A financial journalist such as yourself will know that real markets always have a 50/50 of either going up or down, else they wouldn't be real.

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

Well, I understand Andy's point. All the journalists want is a quick 'I think the markets will go up this year' and then if things don't go right, they pull out the old copy from 12 months back, say 'aha' - leading fund manager gets it wrong.

If we had a crystal ball, we'd all be doing very well for ourselves. As it is, the only crystal ball belongs to Warren Buffett.

Tuscan - markets are so real that they aren't real - certainly not some of the promises that people traded! But that's the way it works...

Electro-Kevin said...

What will Britain's situation be if they go up ?

Recent events ought to cause a reassessment of our imbalanced economy.

We musn't try too hard though. The counter point of being able to "spend yourself rich" is that you can "work yourself poor."

After nearly thirteen years Brownian theory put into practice has taught us so.