There’s red all around. The sand and the rocks are red. Is the air red? It sure seems that way.
There used to be white tent over there next to that mountain. Now it’s a red tent. That’s where Ollie Marks sits at his desk. He has an Internet connection running at a very slow speed of 10 Kbps per minute. Ollie is connected to a small satellite orbiting the red planet. The satellite sends his signal 50 million miles across the empty space until it reaches a slightly bigger satellite that orbits his home planet. His signal then bounces from tower to tower until the data is transmitted to its destination.
What is Ollie Marks doing with his Internet connect? He’s trading stocks.
Ollie Marks trades stocks from Planet Mars.
The hard part about trading stocks from Planet Mars is your Internet connection is just so slow. You get data that lags. And lags. Are you still reading this? Are the words reaching you? You might place a trade at $25.66, but by the time it reaches its destination it’s already dropped to $24.88. A loss of $1 per share. Wait, actually a loss of 78 cents. Sorry, the Internet was just that slow.
Ollie Marks tries to cool his temper when this happens by doing stretches on a blue mat he has on the floor of his white, er, red tent. This exercise works for a brief few moments, then it’s back to the screens. Ollie clicks refresh over and over. But his Internet connection spins and spins. He never knows what the price is. Sometimes, this does work out in favor.
One time, he bought a stock right before earnings, and moments later the stock crashed 25% in a matter of seconds. But luckily for Ollie, he had no idea. Meanwhile, back on Earth, it quickly was announced that the earnings report had a typo in it – they did not lose 25 cents per share, they actually MADE 25 cents per share. By the time Ollie got connectivity, he was up big. From Mars, the crash never happened.
Most recently, Ollie managed to get a massive margin loan.
Share your your wisdom