Monday
Our cat, Mimi, looked very much alive. Brian, the syndicate's dog, however, was a comatose wreck. The tension has affected everyone - even our budgie, Herb, looks like the last canary down the mineshaft.
Personally, I felt like a shag on a rock. OK, we caught a sniff of the upside: we got into Fortescue at $2.70 on Friday.
But by and large we just felt overwhelmed and lapsed into a catatonic stupor: should we buy up big and settle in for a two-year wait? Should we trade our way further into disaster? Should we hang up our laptops and head for Mullumbimby?
Drew Watson, as usual, gave us a steer: "Numberplates," he said. Drew's an interesting bloke; on a good day he's a cheerful man about town - debonair, smart. On a bad day he mooches about the trading room (Yogi's living room) ruminating. You can usually judge his mood by his T-shirt. Today he wore his I BRING NOTHING TO THE TABLE T-shirt. On bleak days, he wears his DROWNING NOT WAVING T-shirt.
Indeed, as we sat around the syndicate trading bench (Yogi's breakfast table), Drew Watson brought nothing to it at all. He ummed and ahhed, made himself a plate of Weet-Bix, sat down, peeled a banana …
Tuesday
With that, he was off again: "Did you know that numeral-only numberplates ceased being issued in 1937?"
No, we didn't.
"Were you aware that in the first auction for numeral-only plates, in Sydney in 1983, Number 6 fetched $50,500 … and it's now worth more than $300,000?"
Nope, we weren't.
Drew Watson warmed to his theme and we noticed his eyes bulge and a bead of sweat appear on his chin: "On November 4 is the first public rare numberplate auction in 15 years. They're auctioning numbers 211, 428, 645, 887 and 997 - all of which are expected to fetch up to $65,000 to $70,000. Now, that's a bargain."
I realised we were sitting in the presence of a maniac. Drew Watson was seriously suggesting that we plunge all our spare cash into numberplates. Not gold, not Mozambique, not US bonds … numberplates.
Yogi seemed impressed: "Is 1988 available? I want it for my scooter. Because 1988 was the year Kylie sang 'I should be so lucky, lucky lucky lucky, I should be so lucky in love', in the bath."
We politely ignored him. The good news is that we sold Fortescue at $4.20, making a profit of $15,000.
Wednesday
Doomsday, our bear market analyst, looked remarkably cheerful: "I've been predicting this for 15 years," he said, as he put the letters NUT on the board. "We're looking at the collapse of capitalism as we know it."
"Affirmative," Drew Watson said (when stressed he tends to use military terms and the 24-hour clock, for example "at 1100 hours I shall go shopping," he said this morning). Then he laid down the word AZYGOUS, to our irritation.
"Well, what do you mean by that?" wondered FastCash, our head of research, whose turn spelled SILLY.
"I think azygous means …" Drew began.
"No, about capitalism ending? What does Doomsday mean by that?"
"The markets didn't work, did they?" he replied. "They failed every American. Even Bush supports intervention. Bush is a socialist."
"I think not," Drew said. "I think what we're seeing is a brief period of regulation before good ol' laissez-faire economics returns to enrich the bankers and rip you off again."
As they prattled away in this vein, I leapt into the market. This was the biggest buying opportunity since … last Friday.
Thursday
Indeed, Yogi attended an experiment today at Sydney University's Centre for the Mind where his brain was subjected to a blast of electromagnetic pulses. It turned him into an idiot savant for 15 minutes, during which he drew a perfect image of an aardvark.
Friday
But then I had a brain explosion. It was a bit like Yogi's aardvark moment. Suddenly I saw things with extraordinary clarity. I knew exactly what I had to do …
WEEKLY PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENT:
The Phantom Day Traders bought 10,000 Fortescue at $2.70 and sold them at $4.20, making $15,000.
