Understanding the stock market

[Houdini]

Once upon a time in a place overrun with monkeys, a man
appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for
$10 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went
out to the forest, and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each
one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started
catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and
they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their
farms and forgot about monkey catching.

The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of
monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much
less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50!
However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant
would now buy on his behalf.

While the man was away the assistant told the villagers.
'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I
will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city,
you can sell them to him for $50 each.'

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all
the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once
again there were monkeys everywhere.

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market
works.