I spent a while studying the screen, and gradually it all came back to me. It wasn’t such a complicated process – but what was complicated, of course, was choosing

the right stocks. I hadn’t been following the markets of late and didn’t really know where to look. My previous strategy of short-selling, which had been heavily

dependent on research, wasn’t much use to me either, so I decided to play it safe on my first day back – I decided to go with the prevailing wisdom and buy tech

stocks. I bought shares in Lir Systems, a risk-management services company, in KeyGate Technologies, an Internet security outfit, and in various dot-coms, Boojum,

Wotlarks!, @Ease, Dromio, PorkBarrel.com, eTranz, WorkNet.

Once I started I couldn’t stop, and thanks to a combination of recklessness and fear, I ended up emptying my bank account, spending everything I had in the space

of a couple of hours. Matters weren’t helped by the artificial, game-like nature of electronic trading, nor by the dangerous sense I increasingly had that the money

Involved wasn’t real. Naturally, this storm of activity attracted a lot of attention in the room, and even though my ‘strategy’ was about as unoriginal and mainstream as

you could get, the rate and scale of my trading obviously gave it a curious shape – a colour, a character – of its own. Before long, as a result, people started following

my lead, watching my every move, channelling ‘tips’ and ‘information’ out from my workstation. There was an urgency about the whole thing – no one wanted to get left

behind – and I soon had the impression that lots of the traders around me were borrowing heavily or renegotiating leverage on their deposits.

The dizzying Net stocks boom still had the power, apparently, to disorient and whipsaw anyone who dared to get near it – and this included me, because although

I’d landed here today on the back of my reputation, of my previous performance, I was now beginning to realize that this time around not only did I not know what I

was doing, I didn’t know how to stop …

Eventually, however, the pressure became too much for me. It kick-started another panic attack, and left me no choice but to just grab the envelope and go –

without even closing out my positions. This caused some degree of consternation in the room, but I think most of the Lafayette traders had come to expect the

unexpected from me and I managed to get away without too much hassle. A good number of the stocks I’d bought had already gone up by tiny margins, so no one was

worried or nervous – they were just unhappy at letting what they saw as an übertrader escape from their midst. On my way down in the elevator, my heart started

palpitating again and when I got out on to the street I felt really horrible. I walked down Broad Street to the South Ferry Terminal and then over to Battery Park, where

I sat on a bench, undid my tie and gazed out at Staten Island.

I remained there for about half an hour, taking deep breaths and fielding dark, unsettling thoughts. I wanted to be at home, on my couch, but I didn’t want to go

through what was required to get there, which was negotiate the streets again, and the people, and the traffic. But after another while I just stood up and started walking.

I went over to State Street and managed to get a taxi at once. I slumped into the back seat, clutching the envelope, and as the cab inched its way forward through the

traffic, up past Bowling Green on to Broadway, and then past Beaver Street and Exchange Place and Wall Street itself, I had a fleeting impression that something quite

odd was happening. It was difficult to put my finger on what it was exactly, but there was a very jittery atmosphere in the streets. People were stopping and talking,

some whispering conspiratorially, others shouting across cars, or from the steps of buildings, or into cellphones – and in that curious way people have when some dire

public event has taken place, like an assassination or an upset in the World Series. Then there was a break in the traffic and we surged forward out of the financial

district, leaving behind whatever it was I’d picked up on. Soon we were crossing Canal Street and then a few moments later turning right on to Houston, where it was

business as usual.

When I got home, I made straight for the couch and flopped down on to it. The taxi ride had been unbearable and once or twice I’d come close to having the driver

stop and let me out. Lying on the couch wasn’t that much better, but at least I was in a familiar, controlled environment. For the next hour or so, I vacillated between

thinking that the attack would pass, and thinking that … no, I was going to die – here, today, right now, on this fucking couch …

But when, eventually, I didn’t die, and had started to feel a bit less awful, I reached down from the side of the couch to pick up the remote control panel, which was

lying on the floor. I zapped the main TV into action and surfed through the channels. It took me a few moments to focus, and to realize that something was going on. I

went to CNNfn, then to CNBC, and then back again to CNNfn. I looked at the corner of the screen to check the time.

It was 2.35 p.m. and since about 1 p.m. – apparently – the markets had been in freefall. The Nasdaq had already dropped 319 points, the Dow Jones 185 points,

and the S & P 93 points, with none of them showing any signs of halting, let alone bouncing back. Both CNNfn and CNBC were providing minute-by-minute coverage

from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, as well as from their respective studios – the main thrust of the story being that the tech-stocks bubble appeared to be

bursting in slo-mo before our very eyes …

I went over to my desk and switched on the computer. I was curiously calm, but when I saw the quotes, and saw how far the share prices had plunged, I began to

feel dizzy. I put my head in my hands and tried not to panic – and just about succeeded … probably by sparing a thought for all those traders down in Lafayette who as

a consequence of following my leads would almost certainly have been wiped out as well. Though I was ready to bet that none of them had lost as much as I had, which

was now more than likely somewhere in the region of a million dollars …

[ 21 ]

THE NEXT MORNING I WENT OUT to get the papers – as well as to do a provisions run to Gristede’s and the liquor store. The headlines ranged from things like OUCH!

and NIGHTMARE ON QUEASY STREET to INVESTOR CAUTION AFTER MARKETS TUMBLE. The Nasdaq had rallied somewhat in the late p.m. – after a staggering lowestpoint

drop of 9 per cent – and was continuing to recover this morning. This was thanks to a few brokerage houses and mutual funds who’d seen the bottom coming and

started buying on the dip. Some commentators were hysterical, talking about a repeat of Black Monday – or even of 1929 – but others took a more sanguine

approach, saying that recent speculative excess in technology stocks had now been purged … or that what we had witnessed wasn’t so much a wide-spread correction

as a cleansing action in the frothier parts of the Nasdaq. This was all very reassuring for the long-haul players, but not much consolation to the millions of small-time