I was sitting in the park the other day just lazing about on a nice autumn morning when Janet Yellen ran by, dressed in a top hat and tails. “Oh, my knees and whiskers, I’m late!” She said. Then she consulted a tablet, one of those big ones, and said, “Oh, my!” And disappeared into the underbrush.
Naturally, I followed. Around the bend I encountered a large gaping hole in the ground with a little sign next to it that said THE MARKET: PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. I figured, what the heck, I’m as greedy as the next guy, and I fell in. Before I could catch a grip, I was falling and falling and falling. I passed little shelves in the wall, stocked with analyst reports that had clearly overestimated companies’ target prices. Down, down, down I went … 50 points … 200 points … even before lunch had begun, more than 400 points down! Yikes! Was there no bottom to this rabbit hole? I remember when mere double digits were as deep as things got!
Boom! I hit the ground with a thud. I rose to my feet and found I was still in one piece, although several gains that had been in my pocket suddenly seemed to be missing.
I was in a tiny room, very dark. It smelled of money. To my right was a card table with a Bloomberg machine on it. The gizmo was smoking and appeared to be on the edge of a meltdown. Next to it was a tiny cup of sugared soda. Drink me, said a table tent alongside it. I did so, and … whoosh! I had shrunk to the size of my current aspirations for my portfolio, small enough to go through a tiny door that said SECURITIES.
I found myself in a garden. Across a verdant pathway, Warren Buffett was sitting on a leaf of a gigantic tropical plant, eating a bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes he had just acquired. “Who … ” he asked, “ … are YOU?” “I’m just a small investor without the ability to move markets,” I replied. “Buy what you know,” the elderly genius said, quietly cutting himself a slab of Velveeta from a big block of the stuff. “But I don’t know anything!” I replied. “Precisely,” he said. “The good news is that Berkshire Hathaway is doing everything it can to attract folks just like you.”
As I considered this rather expensive option, I almost tripped over Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson, who were searching for something in the thick weeds together. “Where’s that explanation for our failure to bail out Lehman?” Asked the first. “I know we left it in here somewhere,” said the second. At that moment Yellen streaked across my path again, cradling a bouquet of interest rates. “They’re so tiny,” she explained. “I must take care of them!” I followed, ignoring a walrus and a carpenter who were selling oysters debt instruments their own firm had bailed out of.
Stumbling forward, looking for an exit to this madhouse, I found myself surrounded by two groups of media writers. The first were painting the situation green. “It’s too red!” Said one. “No red allowed.” The second clutch had gathered with their paint cans around a monitor blaring CNBC. “Spain!” Cried one. “Russia!” Bleated another. Then they ran off in different directions.
Suddenly … there! At the end of the path! A door marked EXIT TO TAX-FREE BONDS. The only thing standing between me and it was … Jim Cramer! “Ding, ding, ding!” Said Jim Cramer. “Market’s up 256 points today! You snooze? You lose!” Then he honked a few times on a big rubber horn and hit me over the head with a stick of some kind.
I woke to find myself under that same tree in the park. I was glad it was all a dream. Except for the part about the market being way, way up today. It really is. I checked. On the way back to the office, I consulted my tablet, one of the small ones, and adjusted my portfolio a bit, just to be sure. The market is rational, but you can’t be too careful to make the most of every opportunity in times like this.
Follow Stanley Bing at stanleybing.com and on Twitter at @thebingblog.
This story appears in the November 17, 2014 issue of Coins2Day.
