Market Rhythm

I ripped this from one of my previous stories about a crypto trader in my Smartystan series. May this be understood as much as I comprehend the markets.

Constant scouring of the digital landscape produced an excitement in Mary-Elan Naughton. At forty-eight-years-old, she remained spry as her sights honed in on the latest news. The charts looked like mountain ranges, each signaling the profits, losses, net gains, and overall performance of each key sector. She sipped her coffee. Once she had put down the mug, Mary-Elan looked at her one hundred twenty thousand-dollar time piece. This sparked her to check her own bank accounts. She picked up her cup of coffee and sipped some more. With a few taps at the keyboard, she opened up her main accounts. Her lower lip quivered. The mug slipped from her grasp and fell to the wood floor and shattered, the black liquid spraying around her ankles.

The screen reflected zero funds to her name. No credit, no cash. Nothing.  A quickened heart rate and a mind beginning to cool after the initial shock, she looked at the numbers in all of her accounts. Everything had been drained. With a few acres of lands, some bars of gold and about six hundred thousand dollars in cash, she had not been totally bereft but the liquid funds and other assets had all come crashing down for her. Despite all of her efforts to remain completely calm, she jittered with intensity. This morning felt like a daymare, as the sun poked through her condominium windows. 

An immediate rush coursed through her veins. With possession of the knowledge she had accumulated from her finance degree at New Sweden University in Wilmington, Delaware, she knew that she had enough stamina to move. An ache seeped through her bones and into her sinews. The pain of seeing that glaring black zero next to the sign of the dollar prompted her to remain calm through this tumult. When she had finished cleaning up the mess and wiping her eyes from tearing up a bit, she found herself strategizing. Everything that Dr. Patrice Hull, 63, had taught lead up to this moment. In a twinkling of an eye, she had lost it all. Detective skills infused themselves into her every action. 

As she did not need to go to an office anymore, she had to hunker down in her 1800 square foot apartment. Her black Dachshund, Taser, circled her feet when she discarded the broken mug. She looked down at the little guy and grabbed her leash. the robot vacuum cleaner completed the task of cleaning the area. A stroll would help to regain some sense of stability in this rocky morning.

Once Mary-Elan had donned a fitness outfit and sneakers, she walked straight to the elevator. When she had reached the pavement of the complex, a twinge shot through her five-foot-four inch frame. Something knifed her consciousness that seemed to be even more powerful than the knowledge of the zero dollars in all of her accounts. Her mind remained elsewhere as she picked up Taser’s eliminations. In her head, she saw only profits within the last few days. Nearly a billion dollars in funds she traded remained on the horizon. Somewhere out there, she had been able to decipher not a single notion of why her dollars had all but evaporated from her accounts.

She returned to her condo. Now, Mary-Elan had to make some calls.

“Hey, Roberto. I’m having some trouble with my accounts.”

Roberto, 46, furrowed his brow as he clutched a stress ball. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m tapped.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s gone. All of it. Months of researching and deliberating and trading and chasing highs rather than lessons.”

“That’s right, you say ‘lessons’ instead of losses.”

“Because that’s what they are.”

“Anyway, you’ve got nothing?”

“Some hard assets and physical dollars, but that’s about it. I won’t even be able to pay my lease for now….”

“Don’t worry. There’s always corrections and fluidity. These things happen. Hell, you taught me that. Am I the first person you called?”

“Yes.”

“‘See the Wizard.’ Dr. Hull will know what to say.”

“Thanks, Roberto.”

“I hope you get your money––” click. She hung up the phone.

Dr. Hull stood at the window at his office on the Wilmington Stock Exchange (WiSE). Every surface remained completely bare. Only digital projections on slabs of glass stood out in the immaculate room. His headpiece in his ear signaled a call.

“Mary! How's life?”

“It could be better, umm. I don’t have anything in my accounts. Not a nickel.”

“Did you breathe?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you breathe? Take the time to inhale the strategies and leverage and exhale the irrationality and just winging it?”

“I walked Taser….”

“That’s good. But this is of course more grave than the idea of just analyzing markets. This is about why your funds are no longer apparent.”

“Yes.”

“It’s because I’m testing you.”

“You’re doing what, now?”

“I had to drain your accounts to alert you to the pitfalls of trading.”

Mary-Elan seethed. “You have no idea what this will do to my career. My life.”

“It’s all in the way of participating. You were never a team player. Mary cared about Mary. That all changes today. I’ve gone into your account and donated all of your funds to causes you oppose.”

“You listen to me, you son of a––you know what…it’s not even worth it to get worked up. My lawyer will do the talking for me.”

“It sounds cute, but what I did was quite legal. In fact, it encouraged me to go through the basics again and realize that you had made joint accounts with me, remember. You were just a gosling at that time and I was Father Goose who helped you along. Remember, now?” 

Memories flooded Mary-Elan’s consciousness. There appeared to be a breath between breaths as she recalled setting up her accounts with Dr. Hull.

“Okay, so that’s what this is about….You want me to grovel and beg for the money….”

“It’s just a test. It’s all about risk tolerance. How much can you stand to make next month? Ten million, easy? C’mon, Mar,’ let’s not joke that you can earn all of this back.”

“Tuh. You put everything in jeopardy because of some sick simulation you wanted to drag me through at this point?” Mary-Elan’s voice rose with every syllable.

“Come, now. Don’t be bitter. There’s enough funds that you will generate over the course of three months that will triple all that you had built up in the past ten years.”

“I didn’t authorize you….”

“You didn’t have to. I own a percentage of the accounts and have full access to them. Though this might seem a bit abnormal, it happens all of the time.”

“Not to me.” Mary-Elan canceled the call. She wanted to lash out but there had been nothing to throw or kick besides her beloved Taser which she would never harm. With hands on her hips, she walked around the condo. A puff of air blew her hair out her face. She then attacked the screens. She noticed the market rhythm. The fluctuations in the flow of things looked like clef and signature and notes to her. In her anger, her grief, she summoned up enough strength to at least posit a position that she could in fact get her money back.

This feeling of going after the problem surged through her system. Dr. Hull remained the focal point of her controlled rage. The research, the countless hours of poring through leverage and capital management strategies served her here. It brought about a challenge to herself in being her independent self. In every keystroke and mouse click, she brought herself further and further to reaching her goal. As the markets moved throughout the day, she knew she had to find a way to let some levity into her life. Taser circled her feet again and this time, he hungered. Mary-Elan tore open a meal that rivaled human food and placed it into the dog’s bowl.

Back to the screens, she forced herself to focus on the fluctuations of the markets. Margin requirements became her daily bread and she worshipped at the altar of the dollar. Though she had no funds to invest, she still could see each market progress with an intrepidity befitting a warrior engaged in combat. Her war remained with just ensuring she had the proper steps to take when trading. As she looked into her digital books on the subject, the feeling of knowing what to do permitted her to engage in scenarios where she would be able to get a hold on risk tolerance. Her tolerance levels seemed to be thoroughly piqued. Every tap of the keyboard pushed her to the limit. All of her strength and understanding funneled into her abilities to move those mountains of data.

A glance outside of her window inspired her, motivated her. Everything she knew to be real came flooding back into her consciousness. As a warrior for wealth, she knew that she could use operational procedures. She employed every bit of strength to look at the numbers and make sense of them like she had only begun days ago. She noticed a cryptocurrency had tanked at about the same time her money had been pulled. As she followed the trail, Mary-Elan realized that he had used her funds to cover his massive debt. Though there existed no regulations and controls in this market, laws had been implemented to extinguish this kind of behavior before it burned through the entire market.

Her phone contacted the Delaware Bureau of Investigation (DBI). 

“This is Agent Corson. If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 9-1-1. How may I direct your call?”

 “Yes, this Mary-Elan Naughton. I have been violated.”

“How so? Please state the nature of your situation.”

“Well, my financial advisor stole money from me.”

“He took cash from you?” Agent Corson asked.

“Not quite. He used trading mechanisms to manipulate my accounts.”

“Did you grant access for him to go into those accounts?”

“I did when I started out, but that was ages ago. I never thought he’d pull something like this….”

“What we can do is open an investigation and see where the money was allocated. We suggest that you seek some sort of insurance policy that might safeguard you from financial ruin. It’s completely legal for him to drain your accounts if you shared them. But the chancery courts here in Delaware would most likely favor you in this matter.”

Mary-Elan breathed. “That is one thing I do have going for me. I will see Dr. Hull in court.” 

As she canceled the call, she had a notion to get her money back in any way possible. Yes, she had dialed the DBI, but she wanted to do something on her own terms, something that would blast away the Doctor’s good name totally. Her sleuthing skills needed some tweaking. No, she didn’t possess a cloak and dagger or sunglasses and a fedora. She did, though, have the receipts to every transaction that she had made online. The trader in her propelled Mary-Elan to heights of glory amidst the pains of misfortune. Despite having been cleared out, she could count on her wits to guide her through the digital atmosphere. Like an aircraft flying at thirty thousand feet, she could navigate her way to a victory in the form of investigating for herself.

The various changes to her account warranted her to become the captain of the vessel to restore the funds to her accounts. By logging in again, she saw the big fat zero on each of them. This drove her. In time she would show just how many dollars had been taken from her. Billions. What money she had to uncover mattered because it signified her work. Of course she started with Dr. Hull and he led her to a position of power, but she channeled all of her expertise and knowhow into this particular act.

As the morning opened up for margin information, Mary-Elan published the transactions in her accounts. Mouths hung agape and multiple comments jumped on the screen like digital popcorn. People posted ideas of it being a hoax, but Mary-Elan ensured that each bit of information, with her serial numbers redacted, came with a timestamp to further drive home the point. Gasps from the team which thrived on Dr. Hull’s guidance soon scrunched their faces in disbelief. As more and more documents poured into the messaging network, the veracity of her claims became ever present.

Dr. Hull started to get up from his desk. The traders on the floor cast glances at the senior partner at the firm. Upon reading Mary-Elan's words, an emergency board meeting had been called. Hands raised in the air to abdicate Dr. Hull from his fiscal throne.

Then the notes of congratulations for standing up to the once impervious fortress of trading flooded onto the scene. Mary-Elan looked at the correspondence relating to the five to ten business days where her money would once again be returned to her. She called for Taser to follow behind her. They went for a walk.