OK, Doomer

Katie Martin (0:09)

Everyone is being far too cheerful. Knock it off. If you tune in regularly to this here show, you will know that financial markets, stocks, bonds, currencies, all that jazz, are remarkably calm right now, given the huge range of apparent dangers. Central bankers are under attack, geopolitics are in the bin, all sorts of policy, particularly in the US, is just all over the place. I can't imagine why. Now, in markets, here's a little secret. Everyone knows the cool kids are bearish. They're the clever sods who are always saying this will all end in doom and damnation. Moderate optimism is for squares. So today on the show, we're gonna lay out for you how to be a massive misery guts about markets. This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times and Pushkin.

I'm Katie Martin, a markets columnist at FT Towers in London. And I have to say, a bit of a misery guts in general. I'm joined down the line, refreshed from his holidays in the sunshine by that guy off of the Unhedged newsletter in New York City, Robert Armstrong Esquire. Rob, welcome back.

Robert Armstrong (1:23)

I'm tanned, I'm rested, I'm ready.

Katie Martin (1:26)

Did you miss me?

Robert Armstrong (1:27)

I really did. I had a nice vacation, I went to the beach, I went to a friend's wedding. I'm feeling good.

It's going against my mood to provide listeners with a litany of reasons for pessimism.

Katie Martin (1:41)

Yes. But just really quickly, I'm going to see you in real life this weekend.

Robert Armstrong (1:47)

I'm excited.

Katie Martin (1:47)

Am I not?

Robert Armstrong (1:48)

You are at the FT Weekend Festival in London.

Katie Martin (1:51)

Yes.

Robert Armstrong (1:52)

It's going to be great.

Katie Martin (1:53)

We're going to do a recording. We're going to hope it's not a disaster because if it is, then we're a bit stuffed for next week. But buy tickets and watch us humiliate ourselves.

Robert Armstrong (2:03)

And there's loads of other stars from the FT and elsewhere there. It's just a great event. There's still tickets available. And you should go. I'd love to meet listeners in person. Come, we'll shake hands and we'll talk about the good old days.

Katie Martin (2:15)

Yeah, you will see Rob has a great face for radio. So it's the FT Weekend Festival at Kenwood House. There's a few spaces available. Use the promo code FT Podcasts with an S on the end for money off. All of this stuff is in our show notes. Now then, bears, pessimists, they have predicted 15 of the last three recessions, but I'm being serious here. I think there are reasons to worry. Let me tell you a little anecdote, Rob. Back in 08, I was very pregnant. So I missed most of the crisis, but what?

Robert Armstrong (2:51)

You must have been. So it was teenage pregnancy because I know you were like 17 at the time.

Katie Martin (2:55)

Yeah, exactly. Let's just gloss over that bit. My point is, there I was, very pregnant, teenage bride, and staff in markets was like starting to go wrong. And I interviewed an academic, and I wish I could remember his name, but I can't. And he was saying, mark my words, there's going to be a huge crash coming. It's all going to be terrible. And I wrote up what he said, and my editor took a look at the story and said, what is this scaremongering nonsense you've got over here?

This isn't true at all. I was not at the FT at the time, I must say. And he spiked the story. And I kind of argued the point, but I was like too pregnant to care. And I soon after went on maternity leave. My point in raising the story is that it's just not true that nobody saw the 8 crisis coming. And the people who claim to be the one person who saw the signs, no, no, no. Lots of people saw the signs, but nobody wanted to listen.

Robert Armstrong (4:01)

But your joke about predicting 15 of the last one crises is of course exactly the point. The problem is not that nobody predicts the bad stuff. It's that lots of people are predicting the bad stuff when it doesn't go on to happen.

Katie Martin (4:15)

Yes.

Robert Armstrong (4:15)

Right? Yes. And indeed, this is a professional risk for people like us, Katie, in that you write a lot of stuff and you write this downbeat stuff and everybody just forgets it. People kind of like reading downbeat stuff anyway. Everybody forgets it. But the one time you get it right, you can look back at one of the 15 columns you write and say, gosh, I really nailed it that time.