Originally Posted by JohnW (Post 639681)

How the stock market works:

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.

Originally Posted by blazey (Post 640060)

So is this 'short selling' ?

Originally Posted by Neil (Post 640374)

Now I am really confused - why are the monkeys wearing shorts :confused:

Originally Posted by lancsdave (Post 640377)

Their jeans were in the wash

Originally Posted by SamF (Post 640384)

You didn't read the story did you... the business was a short's merchant that's why he went to the city...

Originally Posted by lancsdave (Post 640385)

Go rilly expect me to believe a story like that ;)

Originally Posted by Neil (Post 640383)

Last thing we need - a dingle talking about genes :p