How Wall Street works

by Penny on October 22, 2008



On a lighter note, this is a good read (not to mention great lesson) on what Wall Street is made of. Of course this is all in the name of fun and laughter.

Once upon a time in a village in India, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10.

The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50.’

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! Welcome to WALL STREET.

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2 comments

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Alvin Lim October 23, 2008 at 10:01 am

Mmm…and some experts suddenly said that the monkeys have a contagious deadly disease which will kill human beings within 24 hours upon contact.

I think the monkey will be priced at $0 soon. :P Panic selling.

2 Penny October 23, 2008 at 10:33 pm

Hahaha…it’s already happened, hasn’t it?

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