land. That’s already sorted. It keeps the freelancers off and lets us get on with drilling. Drills are boring, soldiers are scary. Always does the trick.”
“How much are you raising?” asked Sebastian.
“Just a mil, pre, pre.” The broker had woken up.
“I’ll take half,” said Sebastian.
“No, no, mate,” said Baz, “there’s not a half to be had. You can have …” He looked at the broker.
“A hundred,” said the broker.
“A hundred thousand pounds!” exclaimed Sebastian. “That’s hardly worth me coming out to this meeting.”
Baz shrugged. “If a quarter of a million profit at pre-IPO isn’t enough for you, I’m sorry we wasted your time.”
Sebastian blushed. “Well, I’m rather disappointed.”
The broker sat up a bit. “If you want to roll the quarter into the pre-IPO there’ll be a hundred per cent uplift at that point.”
“Righty-ho, then,” said Sebastian. “I’ll play.”
“We’ll hold your pre-pre-certificates in that case,” said the broker. “We do like to control the stock, you understand.”
Sebastian nodded. If they held the stock certificates, the promoters could ramp the stock to the sky without the risk of early investors betraying them by selling for a quick turn. He’d be able to sell out but only when they said he could. That was the quid pro quo of being invited to the party early: the risk of powerlessness and complete loss was counterbalanced by a thumping great up-side. He was prepared to take the risk because he’d heard that Baz Mycock was the Elvis Presley of mining promotion. Here was a man with enough balls to float a resources company called Barron Mining and have no one spot the irony of the name. He always made the boys a mint so Sebastian wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth – even if it might be a Trojan one.
8
Jim scratched at his stubble. He had certainly picked a good time to hammer the markets. They had hit a period of turbulence and the value of stocks and currencies were swinging about with increasing volatility. Something must be going on in the world economy, bad news filtering out and coming to the attention of the big money players. He had made a billion dollars in a week and the total would be a billion pounds by the end of the day.
Stafford had been a brilliant idea on Davas’s part: the butler pampered Jim with drinks and snacks, as if he was a giant baby, fuelling him to plunder the world’s twenty- four-hour markets. A computer, the Internet and food were all he required to stack up his colossal winnings. He just needed to get up in the morning, sit in front of his screen and be right.
There was no gatekeeper or umpire, no judge and jury except the market. He could sit at his screens stark naked if he liked. Trading was a game Jim didn’t lose. He looked at the charts and saw what would happen next – and it did, just as thousands of books on trading promised anyone could do if they read and understood them.
They always said that the patterns were there to be seen: all you had to do was follow the program and you’d make money. The smart investors knew this must be crap because,with a winning formula, any greedy trader could simply grow their trading in scale and soon, like an expanding blob from some 1950s horror movie, all the money in the world would be sucked into the scheme’s exponentially expanding ectoplasm.
But a system like that could only work if it was known to just one person: two people equally matched in a game would cancel out each other’s advantage. In any event, no system could ever work for long and the Nobel Prize theorists said no system could ever work at all.
The books on reading charts came out in their hundreds every year and the hopeful dutifully bought them, searching for the key to riches, but no one had yet found the system that worked, not even Jim. He just saw where the chart would go next: there was no technical trick beyond that. The charts of stocks, commodities
“How much are you raising?” asked Sebastian.
“Just a mil, pre, pre.” The broker had woken up.
“I’ll take half,” said Sebastian.
“No, no, mate,” said Baz, “there’s not a half to be had. You can have …” He looked at the broker.
“A hundred,” said the broker.
“A hundred thousand pounds!” exclaimed Sebastian. “That’s hardly worth me coming out to this meeting.”
Baz shrugged. “If a quarter of a million profit at pre-IPO isn’t enough for you, I’m sorry we wasted your time.”
Sebastian blushed. “Well, I’m rather disappointed.”
The broker sat up a bit. “If you want to roll the quarter into the pre-IPO there’ll be a hundred per cent uplift at that point.”
“Righty-ho, then,” said Sebastian. “I’ll play.”
“We’ll hold your pre-pre-certificates in that case,” said the broker. “We do like to control the stock, you understand.”
Sebastian nodded. If they held the stock certificates, the promoters could ramp the stock to the sky without the risk of early investors betraying them by selling for a quick turn. He’d be able to sell out but only when they said he could. That was the quid pro quo of being invited to the party early: the risk of powerlessness and complete loss was counterbalanced by a thumping great up-side. He was prepared to take the risk because he’d heard that Baz Mycock was the Elvis Presley of mining promotion. Here was a man with enough balls to float a resources company called Barron Mining and have no one spot the irony of the name. He always made the boys a mint so Sebastian wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth – even if it might be a Trojan one.
8
Jim scratched at his stubble. He had certainly picked a good time to hammer the markets. They had hit a period of turbulence and the value of stocks and currencies were swinging about with increasing volatility. Something must be going on in the world economy, bad news filtering out and coming to the attention of the big money players. He had made a billion dollars in a week and the total would be a billion pounds by the end of the day.
Stafford had been a brilliant idea on Davas’s part: the butler pampered Jim with drinks and snacks, as if he was a giant baby, fuelling him to plunder the world’s twenty- four-hour markets. A computer, the Internet and food were all he required to stack up his colossal winnings. He just needed to get up in the morning, sit in front of his screen and be right.
There was no gatekeeper or umpire, no judge and jury except the market. He could sit at his screens stark naked if he liked. Trading was a game Jim didn’t lose. He looked at the charts and saw what would happen next – and it did, just as thousands of books on trading promised anyone could do if they read and understood them.
They always said that the patterns were there to be seen: all you had to do was follow the program and you’d make money. The smart investors knew this must be crap because,with a winning formula, any greedy trader could simply grow their trading in scale and soon, like an expanding blob from some 1950s horror movie, all the money in the world would be sucked into the scheme’s exponentially expanding ectoplasm.
But a system like that could only work if it was known to just one person: two people equally matched in a game would cancel out each other’s advantage. In any event, no system could ever work for long and the Nobel Prize theorists said no system could ever work at all.
The books on reading charts came out in their hundreds every year and the hopeful dutifully bought them, searching for the key to riches, but no one had yet found the system that worked, not even Jim. He just saw where the chart would go next: there was no technical trick beyond that. The charts of stocks, commodities
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