Sometimes, such as now, when the market’s watchers seem entranced by day traders and their daily whims, it’s fun, behind the scenes, to add another layer to the picture, imagining a silent smiling figure among the watchers, pressing a button here and there, infrequently and almost casually, which causes everything at once to scramble and change course. Like an elephant or some such giant walking slow and heavy through a jungle, oblivious to specimens that scurry down below, the frenzy of each giant step that’s taken.
It isn’t fair for either the big or little specimens to think about such things (for one’s amusement), because it isn’t altogether like that in the real life of the market or the jungle, but when we watch things from afar we simplify. For fun or not. And in this case the walking influential giant, for fun, embodies the investment funds’ limited partners. The limiteds, in parlance.
This ultimately is the money source that calls the shots, if only indirectly. It can move funding and commitments from here to there; it can deposit big amounts or take these out; it can go the private or the public route, equity or debt, early- or late-stage, alternative or what have you. And sometimes, if it wants, it takes from one pocket and transfers to another, all casually like – as mentioned, the cartoon is for amusement – and even when that happens all the market watchers and the traders and what have you, scramble.
Speculative Fiction 