Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned +0.41% across the same tape.
75 desks completed all five charts.
With interest rates climbing and tech in freefall, investors decided waste collection was about as safe as a balance sheet could get. The defensive bid quietly carried straight on.
The race to dominate cancer immunotherapy had sparked a furious summer comeback, convincing investors that earlier clinical stumbles were firmly in the past. This was the week that blistering run finally hit a ceiling.
Wall Street still treated chip-equipment makers as volatile cyclical trades rather than essential tech giants, expecting every autumn bounce to fade. The momentum carried straight through into the new year.
The first wave of AI excitement had carried chip equipment makers through the summer, but the wider semiconductor industry was still nursing a cyclical slump. A quiet summer drift broke the moment sellers took firm control.
The wider market spent that winter in turmoil over the 2018 rate scare, but big-box retail was treated as a safe harbour. Even as the dust settled, the shares simply refused to move.