It is perhaps poignant that with many people looking for a market correction and much talk of elevated sentiment measures bringing back memories of 1987, that we learned today of the death of Marty Zweig, widely known not only for the put-call ratio, and ‘Don’t fight the Fed’, but also his prescient call in October 1987 just before the crash.

Marty Zweig calls the Crash of ’87 (The whole thing is worth watching but Marty comes in around the 6:40 mark)

Watching that piece of history again there’s much that modern business networks could learn from it. Notice the easy-going style of Louis Rukeyser, the complete lack of confrontation with his panelists, no raised voices, no sound effects, no gotchas. This is after one of the most wretched weeks in Wall St, (worse was to come obviously), but you would barely know it from the calm civility which permeates their discussion.

What I particularly like and admire however, is in making his observations Marty Zweig is almost apologetic about it. He fears we’re on the verge of something severe but rather than take the opportunity for grandstanding as many of today’s pundits would, he’s almost scared to tell everyone. He says: (more…)