Monday, March 10:
The "Day Traders' 2021 Stockmarket Summit: The Way Forward", struck its first hitch this afternoon: it seems the Prime Minister won't be attending.
This is perhaps understandable. Kevin Rudd has his own 2020 Summit to attend.
Then we got worse news: Cate Blanchett can't come either. I was flabbergasted. Blanchett is a lively day trader, with much to offer - who can forget her brilliant short-selling spree during the Asian Crisis of 1997, remembered in hushed terms in daytrading circles to this day? I understand from her agent that she will be "in rehearsals" on March 21, when our Summit starts. It seemed a pretty lame excuse to me.
Tuesday, March 11:
The good news is that Tiaro Coal and White Canyon Uranium floated on the sharemarket last week. The bad news is that we don't know whether we have shares in them. Yogi, our senior chartist, did a "spring clean" yesterday (in March?) and threw out all our 2008 share certificates.
It was a peculiarly imbecilic thing to do, especially since he decided to keep all our 1988 share certificates. These provoked a sad walk down memory lane - back to the Holmes a Court meltdown, the Bond catastrophe, the 1987 fallout. We sat about in melancholic disarray at the awful reminders. We were only 10 years old at the time.
We incinerated the lot, and turned our minds to the coming summit. Of the 1000 finest investment minds in the country who were sent invitations, four had accepted by noon today.
One was from a Mr G. Gnome, of No Fixed Address. Another was from Christopher Skase. A third was from Sheila Bone, my great-aunt (who was released from prison last year after serving three years for tax evasion). And the last was from Mrs Hillary Clinton.
"Hey! Bill's wife's coming!" shouted FastCash, our head of research.
Wednesday, March 12:
We sat around Hillary's RSVP note like a team of druids brooding on the winter solstice.
It was indeed an extraordinary thing. Where does she find the time?
"Do you think her Bill will come too?" wondered Doomsday, our bear market analyst.
It didn't occur to us that there might be two, or three, or 20 Hillary Clintons.
"Perhaps she's thrown in the towel? Maybe Obama drove her mad, and she decided to high-tail it out of America? I wouldn't blame her," mused FastCash.
"Yeah, but why did she choose our daytrading conference?" Yogi asked.
I looked at the note: it had an American stamp, and an Arkansas address. The envelope smelt vaguely of an ex-First Lady's perfume. Not cheap, but not the best.
We decided to write back, to ask whether she had any special dietary requirements - just to be sure.
Thursday, March 13:
We discovered that the "G" in "Mr G. Gnome" stood for "Garden".
"Why would a garden gnome want to attend a stockmarket summit?" wondered Yogi.
"Yoges, it's a joke, mate. But whoever sent it clearly has a profound personality disorder," offered Doomsday. "Why would they choose to steal the identity of a garden gnome?"
It was a vexing question, which echoed the fears of all of us. Not a few day traders have succumbed to the urge to disguise themselves as gnomes or hobbits. Why, the great Warren Buffett even used the name "Frodo" in an investment chatroom recently, said one source. But since the source signed his name "Bilbo" we dismissed him as unreliable.
We sat about the rest of the day drawing up plans for the workshops.
Yogi will be responsible for the chartists' session, entitled: "The Past IS a Guide to the Future If You Know Where You've Come From". He added, hopefully: "I hear Hillary is deeply interested in share charts."
FastCash will present, "Deep Research: How To Pick Stocks Based On Knowledge Not Gut Feel".
As senior strategist, I got the job of chairing a discussion entitled: "Deeper Research: How to Pick Stocks Based On Gut Feel Not Knowledge."
Doomsday will hold a timely session on "Selling Your Way Out Of A Crash".
And we thought Hillary might share her sharemarket experiences. We proposed the title, "Presidential Portfolios: What Whitewater Taught Me About Beta Analysis and Modern Portfolio Theory."
Friday, March 14:
With a week before the summit, we studied the attendance list: eight people have accepted, including the spokesperson for the Mullumbimby Monetarists, our sister daytrading syndicate. This provoked speculation that all the Mullumbimby Monetarists will attend. Doomsday insists on chairing a workshop entitled, How To Run A Workshop. He won't attend a summit unless they offer a workshop on how to run a workshop. Doomsday can be a pedantic old bore at times.
