Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned +0.12% across the same tape.
55 desks completed all five charts.
Every headline that summer belonged to the chipmakers, leaving old-school enterprise tech written off as a bystander to the AI boom. Three months of sideways grind ended right here as the buyers stepped back in.
Gold was charging towards record highs as post-crisis stimulus stoked inflation fears, but the mining stocks had spent months trailing behind bullion. This was the week the metal's rally finally pulled the shares with it.
Blockbuster patent expiries had dragged on for years and an autumn market scare was in full swing, so most investors assumed the shares had nowhere to go. This is the week the selling dried up and the bounce took hold.
Household budgets were battered by the financial crisis, and conventional wisdom said premium sportswear would be the first thing shoppers cut. Plenty of investors dismissed the spring rebound as a bear market trap, but the bounce still had legs.
With the financial crisis at its height, the prevailing fear was that cash-strapped consumers would abandon branded household staples for supermarket own-brands. This is the week the selling broke and the shares found their floor.