Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned -0.08% across the same tape.
48 desks completed all five charts.
American housebuilding and car factories were finally waking up from the post-crisis slump, turning a century-old paint and coatings maker into a quiet play on the recovery. Sluggish demand across Europe still gave the market pause that spring, and the sellers were not quite finished.
Back then Wall Street priced Eli Lilly as a sleepy dividend stock staring down a brutal patent cliff on its older blockbuster drugs. Nobody watching this quiet summer climb had any idea that weight-loss medicines would eventually send the shares up 5272.9% from here.
Summer driving demand and fat refining margins had the market convinced the mid-2000s energy boom still had plenty of road left. Buyers kept pressing Valero higher into July, right at the peak of the old refining supercycle.
Soaring cocoa and sugar costs had the street worried that sweetmakers would see their margins crushed in early 2011, barely a year after Hershey walked away from a bidding war for Cadbury. Instead, the company showed it could pass higher prices straight on to shoppers and the winter rally held its ground.
Small-business hiring was finally picking up after the long post-2008 freeze, and a payroll processor like Paychex was a direct way to bet on Main Street adding staff again. With US interest rates pinned near zero, however, the income Paychex usually earned on its clients' cash float was missing, keeping a lid on how far the rally could run.