Ralph Mellish and the markets - The day nothing happened.

The recovery in the markets in the face of the wall of media predicted doom has me instantly turning to Monty Python's Mr Ralph Mellish and the day when nothing happened!






[Ominous music]

Voice Over: June the 28th 2016 was much like any other summer's day in the markets and Ralph Mellish, a financial correspondent at a broadcasting company, was on his way to work as usual when... (da dum!) Nothing happened! (dum da da dum) Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Ralph Mellish looked at his phone, but one glance confirmed his suspicions. Despite his warnings, and those of his colleagues, there was *no* collapsing stock market. No dismembered debt market trading at record distress. No Sterling Crisis. Nothing. Not a sausage. For Ralph Mellish, this was *not* to be the start of any trail of events which would not, in no time at all, involve him writing a tangled knot of supposition, nor a web article predicting armageddon, which would, had the markets been not uninvolved, surely have led him to no other place, than the central position of economics editor at the BBC.

[muttering voices, News anchor shuffling papers]

Voice Over: But it was not to be (ominous music returns). Ralph Mellish reached his open office space in Medialand, as the FTSE opened at 8:00 a.m., exactly the same time as it usually did!

(door opens)

Enid: Morning, Mr. Mellish

Ralph: Morning, Enid

Voice Over: Enid, a sharp-eyed, clever young girl, who had been with the firm for only 4 weeks, couldn't help noticing the complete absence of tiny, but tell-tale references to the VIX in Mr. Mellish's writings. Nor did she notice anything strange in his Emerging Market references that whole morning. Nor the next morning. Nor at any time before or since the entire period she worked for that firm.

Ralph: Have the new assumed correlations arrived, Enid?

Enid: Yes, they're over there, Mr. Mellish.

Ralph: (faintly) Oh...

Voice Over: But for the lack of any untoward circumstances for this young secretary to notice, and the total non-involvement of Mr. Mellish in anything sensationalist, the full weight of journalistic nepotism would have insured that Ralph Auldus Mellish would have ended up like all who challenge the fundamental laws of the market. On BBC Newsnight being quoted as an 'expert'.

[Ominous music]