Why panic spreads through the stock market
Lunch at the strip club
The sleep deprived, drug and adrenalin fueled stock market is about to turn from greed to fear over the Greek and EU debt crisis. Things could get ugly very quickly. Yesterday the Dow Jones dropped 900 points before recovering.
When I was living in Toronto in the 1990s, the Financial Post profiled stock brokers and traders during the dot.com boom. The report said many of them used drugs like cocaine to keep up their energy level.
Stock market types from Bay Street would descend on the Zanzibar strip club just up the street from the stock exchange. Lunch with naked dancers got their adrenalin pumped up to make it through the afternoon.
Stock traders also worked long exhausting hours, many drinking their evenings away in bars searching for market rumors and relief from the stress.
Having met traders in Toronto, it made sense. They were a sleep deprived, nervous bunch constantly switching from greed to fear. The story in the paper made sense and several brokers confirmed it was true.
The attention span of a stock broker or trader is today, this afternoon, now. Stocks are up stocks are down. Buy! Sell!