THOUGHT FOR FRIDAY 25TH JANUARY 2008
From top share author MALCOLM STACEY
Hello Crazy Folk,
Well, it's been a helluva week so far. I mean huge downs and big ups. Enough to give a case of holy terrors to anybody in the great share shifting game.
Of course, this upset the broadcasters and Press people a bit. They were straight onto it when the Footsie fell more than 300 points in a day. The news bulletins were full of it and some kind people were stopping me in the street to gloat.
But everybody was strangely muted when the shares bit back - and shot back up again.
As you may know, I'm a long-in-the-tooth journalist who criticises most of my colleagues for always looking for the dark story. They seem to revel in it. For example, I rather got the impression that the BBC money journos sounded rather less than miserable, as they told of bad news sweeping the world.
But yesterday, I listened to quite a bit of the Today programme on Radio Four as I normally do and heard little in the news about how shares were likely to perform that day.
So I rather expected the Footsie would shoot up. And of course it did.
Now, I didn't listen to the whole of the programme, so maybe I'm being a bit unfair. But fair dos - if they report Black Monday they should have reported Cheery Thursday with the same quantity of coverage.
But it's the public's fault, really. Which means we're to blame. We love bad news. If we didn't get it, hardly anybody would tune in or buy a paper.
However, there is a lesson here, gang. Don't believe everthing you read, hear or see is always the whole story - some of the more optimistic angles may be missed. The journos cannot predict what will happen in Crazyland - no more than we can. So always make up your own mind. Rocking on!
UKSA is the leading independent organisation for private shareholders in the United Kingdom. It campaigns to protect your rights as a shareholder and runs educational activities for members.
