Friday 23 September 2011

Friday Fun - Market volatility edition

Once upon a time, in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.




The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them.



The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.



The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching.



The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.



The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.



While the man was away the assistant told the villagers, “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”



The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.



They never saw the man nor his assistant again, and once again there were monkeys everywhere.



Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works

19 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

A market analyst is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today!

Anonymous said...

Have you seen the "Chaos Monkey" that Amazon use. I think its been released onto the trading platforms.

Timbo614 said...

On the subject of:

NHS System Cock-up

System Specifications

Interest Rates

Bet you're hooked now :)

Anonymous said...

CU, I think that is the best description I have ever read, not the text book description but how it appears + all the commentators and "opion formers". To a casual observer its like looking like a Ladbrooks on speed (not that I would know what "speed" was), a fly pitcher (a sort of Dellboy) on the con.

Budgie said...

Oo er oo, my portfolio is down 10% in 2 days. Crikey! I must remember to buy monkeys next time. Or not.

CityUnslicker said...

Budgie - my portfolio has hit the magic 50% down on the year now. Bugger. Still, it is not moving much now that iti s a corpse.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

WTF is going on with the silver price today? For years I've been hearing nut jobs says the price is artificially supressed through all sorts of shenanigans yet it has dropped nearly 20% since wednesday. Did JP Morgan sell all their paper contracts or something?

Budgie said...

SW, gold mining shares are down too, at least mine are. It is naked fear; even the Lizards are now panicking. Is this the end game for Greece in the eurozone?

Electro-Kevin said...

There were monkeys everywhere - no money left ...

...don't forget that there's a cage full of shit to clear out too.

Yeah. That about sums up how I feel.

Electro-Kevin said...

CU - Don't give up. I did CPR on a 'dead' passenger on my train on Monday and got him back.(Seriously)

He was that grey and cold it was like Lazarus coming back from the dead. I don't know how I did it.

I'm in for a reward. Probably a £25 WH Smith's voucher and a photocopied certificate.

I'd have got £1000 criminal injuries compensation if I'd run the bugger over instead.

There's a moral in that tale.

PS - don't ever kiss another man. I can now confirm that it's totally overrated.

Timbo614 said...

> got him back.(Seriously)

Well done our Kev!

Nick Drew said...

Good man EK

Seriously

(Now for the UK economy ...)

CityUnslicker said...

Wow...best thing I have heard all week EK.

Anonymous said...

Well done Kev

ND It certainly seems to be spiralling out of control. The pound seems to be sinking gradually against the Euro 1.1464 inspite of the UK not being in the Euro Zone, it does not seem to make sense or am I missing something, markets regarding prices seem to be right so what is going on?

James Higham said...

Level playing field?

Nick Drew said...

Anon@6:14

UK at least can devalue ! - how envious the Spanish must be - and that is what is happening, because (I assume) we are performing worse than the euromark zone as a whole. That has been my judgement & I have been pricing as much as I can in EUR for more than a year now: it has served me well

(and, as you may have noticed from my blogging performance of late, I am working a lot more abroad: gotta go where the work is ...)

I have also held some assets in USD, and that is working out OK too, [though I am a bit more trepidatious abt that]: reasoning is that the biggest (and most brutal) capitalist economy in the world still has a few tricks up its sleeve

(missed selling the gold at the top, though ... but it's a long-term physical position)

Electro-Kevin said...

Wow. Thanks for the thanks, Chaps.

Sackerson said...

Excellent, I must use this somehow.

Now that you have let us know this, where would you be in this story?

dearieme said...

Did I effing ask you to be brought back? Did I? I'll bloody sue you.