Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned +0.28% across the same tape.
65 desks completed all five charts.
The August sell-off had rattled global equities, sending nervous capital straight into the safety of traditional dividend payers. Even with a strong dollar squeezing foreign profits, the autumn bounce was not done yet.
The August market panic had hammered industrial names, but early autumn brought a rush of dip-buyers convinced the global growth scare was over. This was the week the relief rally ran out of steam.
An autumn pullback had cooled off high-multiple tech, but nobody on the street was ready to call time on the pandemic software boom. This is the week buyers stepped straight back in.
Patents on its biggest blockbusters were expiring and the next wave of treatments was still years away, so the market treated the stock as dead money. The selling ran out of steam right here, at the base of what became a 2997.0% climb.
Zero interest rates and billions in loan loss reserves had left traditional banking out in the cold while markets chased the pandemic tech boom. The summer rally had stalled, but the panic selling was already behind it.