The Artificial Nature of Markets

Stock Markets throughout the world are marking down prices. This has been partly due to computer stop loss programmes and partly due to panic; are the stocks and shares worth in a recession as much as they were worth in good times? We are told that we cannot buck the markets and that the markets will find any weakness and exploit it. For ten years of my life I lived above a market; not a stock market but Chrisp Street Market in Poplar, which was then full of fruit, vegetable, food and stalls selling the kind of things that you would today buy in a modern supermarket. What struck me was that there was then almost no price differential from one market stall to another. My Mother did not “shop around” on what were her daily visits to the market which the back of our maisonette overlooked, but went to but from the stallholders that she liked and trusted.