Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned -0.16% across the same tape.
57 desks completed all five charts.
Hyperscalers were fighting for every spare megawatt of AI data-centre capacity, but high borrowing costs kept property landlords under suspicion. A steady spring grind higher ran straight into sellers.
The spring bank failures were still fresh, and the market was convinced higher interest rates would quietly bleed Wall Street's biggest balance sheets. Traders were braced for another leg down, but the floor held.
The street was still treating industrial stalwarts as insulated from the summer credit tremors, pushing markets to record highs in October 2007. The shares caught that final tailwind, but this was the week the rally ran out of road.
The vaccine breakthrough had triggered a sharp rotation into reopening stocks, leaving defensive cell towers out of favour as money rushed back into cyclicals. Sellers were not done yet.
Fresh off the March 2009 crisis lows, even steady defensive staples had been swept into the relief rally, but three months of uninterrupted buying had left the chart stretched. This was the week profit-takers finally stepped in.