May 1987. Why we thought the move down was a head fake.
I clipped this out and kept it, stuck in my file of old cartoons, 39 years ago.
Why keep it for so long? Rates had fallen from 14% to 7% over the prior five years. Now they were rising again. The desk took it as confirmation that the move down had been the head fake. The sky might fall. So I tore the graph out of the WSJ.
Five months later, it did. The 1987 Black Monday crash felt like validation. Rates up, markets down. The clipping was my reminder not to get complacent.
Today, it’s rates up and markets up. The rate rise looks like a head fake.
Or maybe it isn’t.
