Board
I placed the bottle of ketchup I had bought in the refrigerator and had Alice brew me some more coffee. My second cup of the day. I still had many more to look forward to before the end of it.
Taking a sip of the steaming liquid, I booted up the whiteboard. The situation was getting too complicated, and I needed to organize my thoughts. Before the coffee had even gotten the chance to warm my stomach, I had a display open in front of me with the opacity set to 70%. I placed the phrase "The Olive Event" in the center of the board. I never have liked my own handwriting, but writing this down gave me the sense that something big had just begun. How strange.
I slid the information I'd been analyzing on my Tabspot over to display on the whiteboard and then placed the stock price analysis that Alice had done for me next to that.
But what should I make of this mysterious observer? They couldn't possibly obtain any useful information from simply watching my physical self ? the real battles begin and end on the net. Of course, knowing somebody's physical location would let you trace their online activity, but following somebody around while they're trading is pointless. Trying to jump late onto the wave that somebody else is already riding will get you nothing but a face full of water and sand.
The real winner is decided before the fight ever begins. If somebody out there was watching me, that meant the battle had yet to begin. And if that was true, there must still be plenty of openings I could exploit.
The numbers displayed on the board showed Olive's stock leveling off after its recent rapid rise. It was so popular that it wasn't often available to buy anymore. The stock selection that would be available later in the week would most likely generate a fair amount of high praise toward Olive. Of course, the ones recommending you buy it would be the ones who already held shares themselves and were just waiting for the right opportunity to sell.
People who create the news have a huge advantage. They fan the flames to build up the fire. Those whose only source of information is the media are usually the ones who lose out. You may have one or two in every hundred who happen to get lucky, but that's it. Those ones only make things worse, though, by making a big fuss about how effective the media was in their success. And nobody has any legal accountability in any of this.
Anyone who bothers to think, "What kind of game is this?" wouldn't survive a second trading in the market. The sole thought going through your head should be, "How do I make a profit?" I get the feeling the stocks relating to Olive Industries are only going to keep going up.
Since modern trends are so perfectly constructed and controlled, and manufacturers know exactly how much product to distribute, most companies' stock prices remain frustratingly stable. There will always be small up-and-down cycles, but the overall picture is very stable. It's just like the City Carrier with its constant circling of the city. The unchanging principle of stock trading is, "Buy low, sell high," but you can't make any money on a stock that doesn't change.
Even in such a world, however, you sometimes still get companies like Olive that create something so innovative that they generate a large wave. In a market as flat and calm as this, any wave generated can easily become monstrously large. When this happens, the traders usually forced to content themselves with small trades will flock to get a piece of the action, as if they were gambling addicts who had just stumbled on a new casino.
A company like Olive, though… Can stand out a little too much. They attract excessive attention. Any investor who tries to pull something big with them will have authorities on their doorstep the next morning. Only novices and beginners would dare gamble on a titan like that. A professional, on the other hand, wouldn't go anywhere near it. Pros know to bury their roots deep, slowly spreading them outward, tracking all the small players and waiting for the right day to reap their reward.
What they're waiting for is the day when the stock of a company that nobody has noticed suddenly takes off. Of course, after it happens, the hints and signs smack you right in the face. Hindsight is, as they say, 20/20. And the signs you see after the fact don't truly matter, because whatever the reason for the initial surge, buyers will start to take notice and the stock will do nothing but gain steam and continue to rise. The bank accounts of the professional traders who were watching it from the start go up right alongside it. They'll make enough to live on for years without the slightest bit of work.
Anyway, I'd had my eye on a particular brand for some time. It'd be easy to buy up. Just one quick click and it would be mine. I could even have had Alice do it. She's equipped with that capability, after all.
Before I did, though, I had to be sure it's not a trap.
In this economy, it's not impossible for a stock to become worthless in a matter of seconds. Once you're committed, you'll have no time to save yourself. Once a company's balance sheet starts to slide, they'll go bankrupt in no time and be absorbed by the government. I've seen my fair share of traders who were lured in by the sweet scent of a profit only to end up losing everything right along with the company as it collapsed. There are some people out there who are intentionally trying to ruin traders like me. It was entirely possible that I was about to walk into one of those traps.
This train of thought would just get me stuck in a never-ending loop, though.
There are no guarantees in life, and as a result, no clear answers. That is the fundamental mindset of a real trader, so in the end, all you can do is trust your own instincts.
Those who can't might get lucky once or twice, but they'll always end up losing in the end. If they can't find something to believe in, they'll become so mistrustful of everything that they aren't even able to stand on their own two feet.
Taking a deep breath, I bought up a single share of 5421A4381. Just one, as I didn't want to risk creating the next wave in the market. I had to place this pebble carefully in the pond so as not to create a chain reaction of ripples.