The adventures of the NightmareOnWallStreet.

Creation date; Friday 19 October 2001.

In October 2001 (on a Friday or a Saturday the 19th or 20th to be precise) I created the so called NightmareOnWallStreet. I introduced them as one of my so called funny nicknames, and indeed the introduction was a success very soon. Because the Monday morning after it the highly gifted president of the United States declared that 'The terrorist are after our financial structures.'.

So the Nightmare seed was sown in October 2001, of course it took some time for the Nightmare to grow and get big. The DOW even reached 10,500 or more but after that decline was serious. And the scandals surrounding corporate America, the lack of trust into the profession of accountancy together with the behavior of the investment banks did the rest, the decline in stock values got more massive and irreversible. Also the believe of so called 'terrorist experts' into the real threat to financial systems did a lot of good into downsizing the idiot stock values from the past. Don’t we all remember the (terror) warnings that warned for some kind of attack to the banks of East America?

To me it became relatively soon clear that any significant decenting of American stock values would transform in even bigger losses on the Amsterdam stock market. And to be honest I was a bit afraid of juridical trouble with big investors who lost big amounts of money. But I was wrong, nothing of this did happen. The rest of the European stock markets went downhill too and Amsterdam was not significantly different from the rest of Europe. I still do not understand this good, may be it could be explained from the fact that there is no real Amsterdam stock  market anymore, it is now Euro Next with three places of trading.

Or may be that American investors lost the relation between the original nationality of the NightmareOnWallStreet (Dutch of course) and adopted a simple kind of selling strategy (European stock first out). What facts exactly did keep Amsterdam in line with the rest of Europe is still unknown to me.

And while the stocks did take their predictable course (down and fast) I was surprised by the steepness of the decline. How could it be that the Nightmare worked so hard and so good? An imported part to the answer to that question was found when a lot of pension funds decided not to leant any stocks to hedge funds anymore. Because the hedge funds speculated on lower values and simply sold in the morning and bought it back late in the afternoon. As we all have seen; this works very good in getting stock prices down (or getting them DOW as I sometimes say).

For myself I do consider the creation and the workings of the NightmareOnWallStreet one of my biggest and my best works. There also is some statistical evidence supporting the realness of the Nightmare, the national bank of Holland (de Nederlansche Bank) did some interesting historical research:

So from a purely scientific point of view we need extra factors to explain the low levels of stocks. And of course we have read a lot about all those extra factors, and of course all those things sound so rational and so logical. There is a steep decline in the trust in the profession of accountancy, investment banks have been criticized and I even read about techniques having funny names like 'laddering, flipping and spinning'.

All those extra factors sound very good, but before we had Enron and Worldcom & etc etc those factors were already along. And I think that all those extra factors may sound nice and understandable, but if they are that understandable they could have been foreseen. Yes, they could have been foreseen. And may be that was all I was doing on a Friday night in October 2001, may be that was all I was doing...

And you have to admit it, at that point in time it was a perfect thing to do. Now we are 15 months further down the time line and I sometimes wonder how many billions are burned away in the hellish fires of the NightmareOnWallStreet.

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There are a bit more interesting (statistical important) facts about this to tell. End July 2002 my computer went suddenly and unexpected down (or DOW). I decided to let it unrepaired for some time and just observe what would happen.  To be honest, I was thinking that my PC was in the line of fire in some kind of cyber attack and I did not want to get into some kind of position that I needed to repair the thing time after time. If some secret service employees would like to see me not being online, well they could have it that way...

But we are floating away from the story, what are the facts surrounding this computer breakdown on 22 or 23 July 2002? Very simple; The first day after my computer was blown to pieces there was a true and severe breakdown on Wall Street. The DOW ended at 7350 or so, this was very low and we were almost at the 7000 level I wanted it to be.

Almost because the day after that I did observe the biggest gain since 1987, I remember I was very mad upon reading that news. But I had decided to change strategy and leave the internet for some time, but I almost did get back online. Almost...

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After this the DOW enters a horizontal phase for many weeks, but in November 2002 it looks like she is going to take the 9000 level again. I felt very worried upon that because once above the 9000 level it could be hard to get back to the wanted 7000. So what to do?

In that period of time (Sept, Oct and Nov 2002) I faced all kind of serious  troubles with local law authorities. The local courthouse was reacting rather strange towards me and my little company went downhill too. Let me give you an example of strange behavior of local authorities; In May I received a telephone call of someone under the name of Rozema, he needed some private lessons for his son. He sounded like a police officer to me, you sometimes hear it just like those 'doctor voices' in the medical profession. After a little while this Rozema found out who I was and with a lot of surprise in his voice I heard him say to some other people 'He is still giving lessons!'.

The last was only a detail and a lot of these kind of details together did force me to break about 26 window glasses of the local courthouse. That was the second 'glass project' of me and after that I started a small series of 'Funny actions' written on paper and spread via the copy machine to at random chosen members of the public. Also via the ordinary mail a lot of those Funny actions were send around.

In the first or second of these keyboard born actions I had to express my worries about the climbing of the DOW. And indeed it nicely bounced back from that horrible 9000 border...

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So these were the adventures of the NightmareOnWallStreet in the year 2002,  again I wonder what to do in 2003. What to do with it? Just proceed until I have my 7000 level or just let her go? Why not make this dependent on the behaviors of the American government, yes why not? So again my dear government, I have to ask you once over if you have some information I do want to have for a long time. You probably know already what I want to ask to you again; Did I, Reinko Venema, did play some 'accidental role' into the attack from 11 September 2001 yes or no?

A plain and simple question, yes or no? That is all I want to know, so is it yes or no? Just tell, I want to know and by now there is not much reason to withhold info any longer. Most cases have been investigated by now so you cannot say that giving this information to the public could hinder ongoing investiations.

If my ideas about the 11 Sept happenings are correct than it is clear that there is a lot to gain by simply telling the truth. It would ease the tensions between the Muslim and Christian religion a lot, and you my dear government must know this too. And if you again do not tell you must have some serious reasons for this, but I do not understand those reasons. What do you have to gain by keeping this in the dark?

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And now you are, for the time being, at the end of the proceedings of the NightmareOnWallStreet who's birth was told to the public by the guy who's name is NotATree and who lives in the StillNotBlackHouse. Or is it the ForeverWhiteHouse? Just tell the truth and live happily ever after...   

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