Its the foundation stone of commerce. Pay as little as you can for something, sell it for as much as possible. Nothing new there. And its not just physical objects that you can buy and sell, since the ‘Big Bang’ changed trading of stocks and shares, futures, options and all kinds of bizarre ‘derivatives’ to be traded electronically. And unlike physical objects, which tend to depreciate in value (other than a 1966 Ferrari California) trades can do all sorts of things. But if you know which way a share is going to move, that’s a great thing, from an investment standpoint. Its also very illegal and is called ‘insider dealing’ and can land you in prison.

So that’s out of the question then. But how wonderful if you knew market trends and how they were going to change; that would be wonderful. Like betting on a horse-race that actually happened yesterday. Can’t lose.

The fact is though that share and derivative trading is purely speculative. You make a guess which way markets are probably going to move.

Or, you can actually manipulate them to move where you want them. Is that a crime?

According to the Americans, yeah, it kind’a is a crime. A pretty big one. Which is why they want to send Navinder Sarao, a reclusive wierdo from Hounslow, to prison for just 380 years.

Navinder traded from his own home. In fact, from his parents’ home. A modest little semi in West London. And he was rather clever. He traded American derivatives and made some money. Shit loads of money.

He used software which simulated multiple trades. So he’d pick a ‘future’. And when he hit the ‘sell’ button it would appear as if hundreds of traders were selling the stock. So the price would plummet. Being electronic, this happened instantly. And when the price hit a very low price, Navinder would then cancel the sales, as his system allowed him to do, and instantly buy all of them back at the new, very low, manipulated price. Sell high, buy low. Just like all commerce but the wrong way round.

Unfortunately, his manipulations caused billions of dollars of devaluation on share prices on American markets on one day. Which is the post-millennial version of ‘cattle rustling’ so the posse is out to hang him high.

So this geezer, who only and always wears tracksuits from Sport Direct and eats sandwiches only after they’ve been reduced late in the day, paid his own bail of £5million.

I think he’s a hero. I don’t think he should be extradited to a lynch mob. As far as I can ascertain the man’s a bit of a genius. His only real crime is wearing clothes from Sports Direct.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx