15 OCTOBER 1988, Page 31

Bull and bear

THREE messages from a falling market come by way of Andreas Whittam Smith, sometimes share-picker of these columns under the name of John Bull. He was cross-questioned, in the Seventies slide, by an aggressively man-of-the-people inter- viewer. Why should we worry, asked this plain man, if markets went down? Because (he was told) markets lived by forecasting. Yes, but what difference did it make to people outside the City who owned no shares? Because they owned pension rights, and life assurance policies, and unit trusts.... The interviewer played his ace: had a stock market, he asked, ever gone to zero? Andreas trumped it: 'Yes. St Peters- burg, 1917.' I wonder if that market isn't beginning to look cheap.