True Confessions of Bill Emmott

The FT interviews the (thankfully) retiring editor of sister publication, The Economist:

One of his most embarrassing covers, according to Emmott, was in March 1999, about a subject that should have been simple Economist territory: the price of oil. It had its roots in a lunch with an oil company executive, where everybody started musing that, with the oil price at $10, what would happen if it fell to $5? A cover saying that the world was drowning in oil, and noting the possibility of a fall in the oil price, duly appeared. But before the end of the year the price had more than doubled. “It was most embarrassing,” he says candidly.

I could suggest a few others.  There was also that 2 December 2004 leader on “The disappearing dollar” that said “the [US] dollar could tumble further and further.”  The end of 2004 proved to be a major cyclical low for the USD.  Contrarian indicators don’t come much better.

posted on 11 March 2006 by skirchner in Economics

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