Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned -0.01% across the same tape.
129 desks completed all five charts.
The post-Lehman crash was battering heavy industry as credit markets froze across the globe. This was the moment buyers stepped back in, driving a +10.4% surge over the next five sessions.
Autumn market jitters and generic drug threats had big pharma under pressure in late 2014, but defensive buyers kept stepping in to steady the ship. The shares edged up another 1.3% over the next five trading days.
Shoppers were returning to physical retail ahead of the holidays and vaccine rollouts were powering a store revival, brushing aside predictions that brick-and-mortar was dead. The rally rolled on into the next five trading days, adding another 2.3%.
By August 2007, early tremors of the subprime crisis were rattling traders and dragging defensive utilities down with the rest of the market. The next five trading days offered no sanctuary, knocking a further 7.0% off the stock.
With post-election markets rotating aggressively into cyclicals and leaving consumer staples out of favour, defensive giants spent late 2016 drifting quietly lower. That drift ended right at Christmas, when a handful of buyers stepped back in to push the shares 0.5% higher over the next five sessions.