Rigging the stock market

“What kind of crime would you do if you were a criminal?” Hannah asked, wondering why she felt compelled to bring the question up. Surely the girl would say that she wouldn't do anything; even if nobody else believed her, that would be the normal response.

“I'd likely try to convince a lot of people to create a social movement to screw over institutional investors short selling stocks that are about to collapse,” she said. “Pumping up the price artificially.”

“The stock market has the second highest number of Thinkers in the country,” the Director said.

“I'd convince a few other people in real life to start the movement months after I'd already bought the stock,” she said. “There's ways to do it so that they think it was their own idea and they wouldn't even remember the conversation. As a minor, I can't have an account without a cosigner anyway, and I'd be one minnow in the middle of a large school of fish and would be unlikely to be targeted. I could probably multiply my starting money forty times; eighty if I bought on margin and avoided margin calls.”

It might work.

Hannah didn't know much about the stock market other than that her retirement account seemed to be doing fairly well despite the economy in general having tanked for several years.

***

Entrances