Financial Betting Articles

A friend of mine is doing well. A friend of mine is doing very well. He's making £70k profit a month, after costs. He'll be making a million profit a year within 12 months. Profit. After costs, after his own not inconsiderable salary.

And yet...

It's impossible. He's in IT. Everybody knows that in a downturn IT is the first thing to go. (Well, after marketing and the Friday Krispy Kreme donuts.) So, it's impossible that he is making that kind of money. Orders must be down, customers must be cutting back, people must be going without.

And yet...

He's making money. And profits are rising.

"How?" I hear myself ask before I hear yourself ask. (And, please, stop repeating everything I say.) "How?" I finally asked him. And, let's face it, he's the right person to ask.

"I've stopped reading the papers."

"What?" I asked.

"I'VE STOPPED READING THE PAPERS."

"Alright, no need to shout. ...Why?"

"Because they're full of credit crunch this, property prices down that - it's depressing and it's not what's happening on the ground."

Now, it is what's happening on the ground, but I didn't tell him this as I still had an ear-drum to unperforate. But I got his point...

Soaring food prices and energy costs coupled with a depressed housing market are leaving everybody, well, depressed. But my Glass-90%-Full-like friend has a bigger spring in his step than Zebedee.

There's a great moment in Hannah And Her Sisters where a suicidal Woody Allen wanders unthinkingly into an afternoon showing of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup. He finds himself laughing despite himself at the sheer onscreen anarchy of Groucho, Chico and Harpo. Suddenly he realises that for all the doom and gloom that's befallen him there's always something to live for.

The commentators aren't necessarily wrong. Life is going to be tough for a good two years. It's enough to make you feel like Woody Allen's character for a day. But my friend has got Duck Soup playing in his head.

Is he mad? Well, maybe he should see a quack. I said, "MAYBE HE SHOULD SEE A QUA..." Oh, never mind.

For those of a I-like-to-laugh disposition, here's some dialogue from Duck Soup. Groucho Marx (Rufus T. Firefly) talks with Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Teasdale).

Rufus T. Firefly: Not that I care, but where is your husband?
Mrs. Teasdale: Why, he's dead.
Rufus T. Firefly: I bet he's just using that as an excuse.
Mrs. Teasdale: I was with him to the very end.
Rufus T. Firefly: No wonder he passed away.
Mrs. Teasdale: I held him in my arms and kissed him.
Rufus T. Firefly: Oh, I see, then it was murder. Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.

(Film fact fans: Margaret Dumont appeared as the foil to Groucho's acerbic anti-romantic wit in a number of Marx Brothers films - they include Mrs. Potter in The Cocoanuts (1929), Mrs. Rittenhouse in Animal Crackers (1930), Mrs. Gloria Teasdale in Duck Soup (1933), Mrs. Claypool in A Night at the Opera (1935), Emily Upjohn in A Day at the Races (1937), Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury in At the Circus (1939), and Martha Phelps in The Big Store (1941). Groucho Marx maintained that to the end she never had a clue what was going on and could have been appearing in dramas for all she knew. Somehow she brings all those market forecasters to mind...)

Are you more clued up than Margaret Dumont? Prove it at ChoiceOdds.com

So far this month, the FTSE has traded in a 98.85 point daily average range. This is down from July's daily average of 125.46

Wall Street's daily average range is also slightly down this month at 343.12, compared to last month's 362.1 per day

And would you believe it, the DAX is also relatively calmer this month at 116.26 per day down from August's 130.97 daily average

Not content with just being a soul legend, recently departed Isaac Hayes fathered 12 children and was crowned honorary king of Ghana's Ada district

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