The Daily Telegraph, October 15 2023, Roger Bootle
Readers of a certain age may have the date, October 16th, imprinted on their memory. On this date in 1987 – which that year fell on a Friday – Britain was hit by a huge storm, with 120 mph winds.
Only hours before it hit, the BBC weather forecaster, Michael Fish, told television viewers not to worry about rumours of a hurricane about to hit the country. It won’t happen, he confidently said.
This appallingly inaccurate forecast gave rise to all sorts of quips about the relative uselessness of weather forecasting compared to economic forecasting. (Since then, weather forecasting has improved by leaps and bounds but economic forecasting has shown next to no progress.)
On the following Monday, equity markets around the world plunged and that day – October 19th – became known as Black Monday. This echoed the Black Monday in 1929 when the US Dow Jones stock market index plunged by almost 13% in one day.
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