3. The Monkey-Seller
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I want to share a small story which I read on Facebook! A beautiful story!
A merchant and his assistant come to a town. That town has a big problem: monkeys! That town is troubled by monkeys: monkeys, monkeys, thousands of monkeys, hordes of monkeys everywhere! Monkey menace! Seeing this, the merchant makes an announcement to the townfolk: 'I will pay Rs.10 for each monkey that you bring me!' Whoever brings me monkeys will be paid Rs.10 per monkey.'
The townfolk are puzzled hearing this. Nobody in the town understands this. But anyhow, they start catching the monkeys and giving them to the merchant, who pays them Rs.10 for every monkey that they bring. Soon the merchant has thousands of monkeys!
The merchant now raises the offer. 'For each monkey you bring, I will pay Rs.20!' he announces. So the people continue to catch the monkeys and sell them to the merchant and get paid Rs.20 for each monkey that they sell him.
After a month, the merchant raises the offer to Rs.100 for each monkey given to him. The people are thrilled with this new offer. With great difficulty, they trap the remaining monkeys and hand them over to the merchant for Rs.100 per monkey.
Within a few days, there are no more monkeys freely roaming in the town. The people of the town are rid of the monkey menace. And in the bargain, they have also earned money also by selling the trapped monkeys to the merchant. So they are very happy.
Around this time, the merchant goes out of town for a few days on business. His assistant stays back in the town. One day, the assistant secretly calls the people of the town and makes them a surprising offer: 'I will sell all these monkeys back to you for Rs.50. When the merchant comes back, you sell it to him for Rs.100 and give me Rs.25.' The townfolk are very happy. They say, 'Okay!' So, like this, the assistant starts earning money for himself. And soon, all the monkeys are sold.
And then, one fine morning, the townfolk wake up to find that the assistant has gone missing! The merchant also has not come back! Both have disappeared! Only the monkeys are left in the town!
This is what our stock-markets are like! This is the philosophy of the stock-market! Finally who is the winner? Who is the intelligent guy? If you think deeply, you will understand that these are the tricks of the trade!