Here is an analogy from an old buddy about the recent behavior of Indonesia's capital market, in the form of an amusing allegory. As Charles Darwin discovered, there's a monkey in all of us.
Best Wishes, -hms- _____ From: Ongki P Sumarno [] Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 11:57 AM Subject: Play in the Capital Market-- Wall Street ala Indonesia If you have difficulty understanding the current world financial situation, the following should help... Once upon a time in a village in Indonesia , a man, let say his name is Donny, announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rp.100. The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at Rp.100, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at Rp. 200. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to Rp. 300 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rp. 500! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant, Said, would now act as buyer, on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ' Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rp. 350 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for Rp. 500. ' The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw Donny or his assistant, Said, again, only monkeys everywhere!. Now even all the villagers, including us, look like monkeys. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
