Playing The Sock Market

Roland wiped his brow, his handkerchief coming away wet and limp. The stress was certainly getting to him. He had just conducted a trade for 140 million pairs of plain black business at $1.35. Tomorrow they would be worth $1.50, now that he had his position covered. Yesterday he had gone short, as summer was coming and selling short socks was just commonsense.

The buy orders were coming thick and fast, with day traders snapping up small parcels of practically any colour that was close to black. The institutional buyers would move in soon, looking for bigger trades, with summer just around the corner.

Roland took a quick peek at the action in plusfours, but they were still a specialist market with a limited appeal. There were some good buys to be had in English Football Club socks but they tended to be a rich man's indulgence... something you'd hold for love, not money.

He offered 2 million at $1.45 and they were bought immediately. The frenzy had begun. Sock market trading, here on the London Sock Exchange, was the biggest game on Earth, especially since the NYSE had gone tits-up on a series of spectacular bank failures and irrational selling of equities that had followed.