what were you doing on Sept 11?

[kum yin lau]

Hi, I thought this question might be interesting.

I had just started to buy shares again.

I had an open position on USD/Yen long 100000USD

As I sat at the computer, it dropped 7Y before my very eyes

I sat at the computer until 3 a.m. that's when the markets closed & I couldn't do anything anyway

At 6 a.m. I was at the computer again, hugely relieved that it had stabilised and I didn't a margin call. I bought again, long USD again at a relatively stable bottom.

I rode it out and the end of three months, I had made about 50 thousand which helped to sort out the 9 thousand I lost on AUD

The next black swan I experienced was SARS [I was in Singapore then]

I sat down at the computer at Phillips & spent 45 thousand in 3 mins.
SGX [Singapore Stock Exchange] was 1.26 [I'd bought it on 9/11 for 88 cents] today around $6 at its height past $10

I remember buying KepCorp for $3.68 and CapitalLand for $1.00 [The buggers refused to sell for 95 cents]

How many black swans can you recall and what were you doing?

KY

 

[datto]

I took a sickie from work that day. I woke up in the morning without a clue what had happened.

I went to the post office to pay a bill and they had a tv on. I thought it was a movie when I saw the planes crash into the building.

It took me a minute to work out what had happened. I remember seeing terror on people's faces over the next few days, especially young teenage school children, who seemed to be lost and looking at me for some answer.

It was an eerie experience.

 

[Mooze]

I would have been at uni.

My flatmate at the time was into online games and had stayed up late, hence I got woken up when it all happened. Lots of phone calls from family and friends checking I was in Oz and not visiting family, and that my immediate family were all ok in the US.

At the time I didn't see the big deal - having lived in the US for five years and then in London for a bit - it was kind of well this has often happened in London, and American's don't see beyond their borders culturally but it was going to happen eventually with how arrogant/ignorant they are. Different perspective now and understand why it was such a shock but at the time it was just can we get on with life already and stop being so Americano centric.

 

[matto_]

came into work in the city.

Very weird going into a high rise and seeing the vision/footage.

 

[INVSTOR]

We were in Brisbane on holidays from Perth. We woke early as we were on our way to Byron Bay. The volume was down on the TV but there was pictures of planes crashing into the buildings, etc. It didn't look real. The images were continuosly repeated. Eventually we tuned into what was happening. We drove to our destination, husband was glued to the little TV in our cabin. Flying back to Perth after that I was a bit more nervous than usual.

 

[Deena]

I was at work, night duty, my friend was in a patients room and came out and told me what had happened. Because it was so unbelievable I told her she was sick for saying such a thing. Off we went in to the patients room and watched the rest of it unfold, horrific to watch the second plane strike, then the buildings collapse.

Was in such disbelief and so unsettled went home, watched the tv for a few more hours, waiting hoping nothing else was going to occur. I had a coupla hours sleep before going to work again that night.

We were lucky to be having a quiet night at work that night, rare that we could watch the tv transfixed for so long.

 

[monty python]

I was awake in the small hours feeding my 1 month old son, it was such a terrible shock when I realized what was happening and the thought of what it may mean for the world my son would grow up in. I had been working in New York a couple of years before, and recalled standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Centre.

 

[Mr. Fantastic]

I was watching it unfold on TV while studying for exams.
It's really sad the US govt pulled such a stunt but when you consider they rallied the people on their side to invade countries under the guise to "fight the war against terrorism" and install regime change then I guess the collateral damage was a small price to pay.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but when you look at all the holes in their story plus samples of thermite found at the scene then its really chilling to look at the big picture and realize a government is capable of such a thing. I didn't make any money on it though I heard many people made a tremendous amount, almost as if they knew it was coming

 

[jrc77]

I was on a working holiday in the UK - a long way from home.
Oddly enough I was on holidays in Japan when the major Sumatran tsunami happened in 2004, holidays in the Hunter Valley when Steve Irwin died and on holidays in Dubai when Michael Jackson died.

I now make sure I listen to the news when I go away

Jason

 

[Dazz]

We'd only just moved into our former IP, upgrading from our former PPoR in a terrible suburb into a nicer suburb.

The wife had been out on a girls night out and I was home alone with our kids tucked up in bed, simply watching TV waiting for the wife to get home.

Within 30 minutes, every channel on TV had stopped playing their normal programme and had switched over to a live feed from NY, with continual images of that smaller hit on the north tower at level 86.

At that stage it was simply "unusual" with a bit of commentary on the sideline with no actual footage of the incident. When the second plane hit the south tower on level 71 with full footage, it really went into overdrive.

The wife came home about 30 mins later, and we both sat up for another good 2 hours watching events unfold, including the Pentagon hit.

We both went to bed thinking "we'll be going to war over this".

 

[willair]

Hi, I thought this question might be interesting.

I had just started to buy shares again.

I had an open position on USD/Yen long 100000USD

As I sat at the computer, it dropped 7Y before my very eyes

I sat at the computer until 3 a.m. that's when the markets closed & I couldn't do anything anyway

At 6 a.m. I was at the computer again, hugely relieved that it had stabilised and I didn't a margin call. I bought again, long USD again at a relatively stable bottom.

I rode it out and the end of three months, I had made about 50 thousand which helped to sort out the 9 thousand I lost on AUD

The next black swan I experienced was SARS [I was in Singapore then]

I sat down at the computer at Phillips & spent 45 thousand in 3 mins.
SGX [Singapore Stock Exchange] was 1.26 [I'd bought it on 9/11 for 88 cents] today around $6 at its height past $10

I remember buying KepCorp for $3.68 and CapitalLand for $1.00 [The buggers refused to sell for 95 cents]

How many black swans can you recall and what were you doing?

KY

I was sitting in the West End bunker watching the "ASX" and other world markets drinking home brew stout when my Mate "Voyager"rings up and tells me the world is about to end and the gates of Heaven or Valhalla were about too open for him

​

,he's been born again that many times and he's that far out there but he's been my mate for over 40 years,saw the planes go in and the global phenomenon and it made me sick after working on many high rise buildings and knowing what was about too happen next and all those people that were about to die,then all the calls started to come but life is always filled with a dark void filled with rumour and conjecture and as the statistics showed 16 weeks later on the NYSE some traders maybe knew something prior..

 

[wobbycarly]

We were sitting in a motel room in Lyon, France, watching the live feed. Earlier that afternoon, we'd been warned (someone on the bus got a sketchy text message) that something had happened, but it wasn't until we got in the room that the details were clear.

Dinner that night was a VERY sombre affair.

Traveling home when the trip was over was a much different affair from traveling TO Europe a month earlier.

I wasn't in a position to "take advantage" of the market reactions.

 

[kum yin lau]

Hi, all of us in the capital cities were in panic mode because we knew that the morning markets would maul everyone.

The markets in Asia were already closed and everyone was shaking.

By 9.30 a.m. the next morning, I had lost 30%

I was lucky. I'd just started buying so I only held less than 20 thousand, with a lot of cash in reserve.

We felt really sorry that it'd happened but life continued for the rest of us.

When I bought, people I did not know 'advised' me "Don't buy, it'll get worse".

That's why I mentioned black swans.

To us, 9/11 was a black swan.

To me personally, sterling falling below the floor because of Soros, was a black swan. I had to bail out by cutting loss. He cost me 2 years.

To Australians, is the GFC a black swan?

KY

 

[JennD]

I was 11 and the only thing I remember was watching the news and being very confused

Strangely, I remember where I was when Princess Diana passed though - maybe was a bigger deal in the UK at the time...

 

[mumbai]

I was working for an outsourced call centre in India for an US based ISP.

I was ON a call with a middle aged lady whose son worked in NYC (fortunately not in the WTC) pretty close to the WTC, though. She was talking to me and was watching TV at the same time when she saw the news about the attack. She was obviously in a pretty bad state. She kept the phone aside (I could still hear her) and running around the house calling her husband to have a look at the news. I could feel the fear and pain her voice. She disconnected the phone few seconds later.

We (employees of the call center) were asked by our managers not to make any outbound calls and only attend inbound calls and not talk about the attack at all.

 

[MarkB]

It's really sad the US govt pulled such a stunt...

I'm not a conspiracy theorist...

Hi Mark

We're all entitled to what we believe in.

But when you believe in a conspiracy that remains only a theory (and not a widely held one at that), that makes you (you guessed it).... a conspiracy theorist.

I am sorry to have to break that truth to you.

M

ps. I was travelling in western NSW at the time the terrorist attacks took place, near the Darling River.

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

I was watching it unfold on TV while studying for exams.
It's really sad the US govt pulled such a stunt but when you consider they rallied the people on their side to invade countries under the guise to "fight the war against terrorism" and install regime change then I guess the collateral damage was a small price to pay.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but when you look at all the holes in their story plus samples of thermite found at the scene then its really chilling to look at the big picture and realize a government is capable of such a thing. I didn't make any money on it though I heard many people made a tremendous amount, almost as if they knew it was coming

I've gotta ask, do you think the moon landing real or faked?

The real conspiracy was using 9-11 as a precursor/catalyst to invade Iraq. The whole purpose of that invasion was to stimulate the US economy to fend of a recession through weapons manuacturing. Unfortuantely delaying a recession doesn't avoid it, it only comes back bigger and worse.



I was at home watching late night TV (Star Trek) when the show cut to live scenes. I never felt threatened but it was obvious at the time that the world had changed.

A few years later a friend told me that something really bad had happened. I responded asking, "Please don't tell me that some ******** terrorist has made a useless guesture and gone and blown something up again?"

She told me that a nightclub in Bali had been bombed.

Terrorism only serves the terrorist masters by enslaving the population they claim to be fighting for.

 

[vmay]

Had a really bad nightmare about a month before it happened. Catastrophe is not a word I would use normally but that is what I heard in the dream. Then i saw some pictures that showed me this was 9/11 except i did not know till after it happened.

Maybe it was significant for me as I was really unwell and only 6 months into my new PPOR and struggling to get it fitted out. I was trying to do a course at Tafe and I remember thats where I found out what was happening (having done to bed early and missed it).

SO much has happened to me since then. Significant worsening of health then death of 4 close relatives and one friend within 3 years and 3 not so close relatives as well.

It seems like a very dark decade for me..so I think the towers sort of a symbolic for me.

i do get other precognitive dreams ....last year i dreamnt about banana prices going up - that was before Yasi (my brother died then).......i was thinking of selling my IP and i was thinking what good was a dream about banana prices (I even looked to see about banana futures) the property was empty but i was too ill to do anything about it tho I had an agent on hand ready to sign up for selling

Then this year I was dreaming about the job losses...long before they were being reported.

This all probably sounds too weird but sometimes I am trying to make decisions and my normal brain function is effected a lot by the illness and i think I pick things up intuitively...just don't always know what to do about it.

I am just not well enough to keep up with all the financial and other news, so these dreams are interesting.

The reason I mention this is that maybe those who were making money before 9/11 were just getting infor intuitively rather than through other sources.

Know that sounds flakey but I don't know enough about the conspiracy stuff to comment on that.

 

[el caballo]

Hi, I thought this question might be interesting.

I had just started to buy shares again.

I had an open position on USD/Yen long 100000USD

As I sat at the computer, it dropped 7Y before my very eyes

I sat at the computer until 3 a.m. that's when the markets closed & I couldn't do anything anyway

At 6 a.m. I was at the computer again, hugely relieved that it had stabilised and I didn't a margin call. I bought again, long USD again at a relatively stable bottom.

I rode it out and the end of three months, I had made about 50 thousand which helped to sort out the 9 thousand I lost on AUD

The next black swan I experienced was SARS [I was in Singapore then]

I sat down at the computer at Phillips & spent 45 thousand in 3 mins.
SGX [Singapore Stock Exchange] was 1.26 [I'd bought it on 9/11 for 88 cents] today around $6 at its height past $10

I remember buying KepCorp for $3.68 and CapitalLand for $1.00 [The buggers refused to sell for 95 cents]

How many black swans can you recall and what were you doing?

KY

Kum Yin,

Fascinating story ... can I ask if it isn't too inquisitive, would you be up overall from those type of "falling knife" trades?

Cheers,
Greg

 

[MsAli]

I was in year 10 and had been in Australia just under a year. Didn't really understand much other than it was an unusual event destroying a lot of lives and families. Went to school to find a predominantly middle eastern student population had various students celebrating the event, sadly. We had an assembly first thing in the morning and the principal said that it was a very sad day and that anybody found celebrating will be suspended/spoken too...I was pretty speechless. I guess being an average teenager I was too self absorbed with my own thing...

...I just didn't/don't understand the hate people carried for the US or vice versa towards the middle east....