The Crying of Lot 888

For a moment, the staredown breaks, as our eyes shift toward the visual distraction of a giant yellow Nike swoosh on a red sweatshirt hustling by - his footsteps silent against the carpet of the five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong. The auctioneer cries "$130,000" and my staredown foe, looking over his bifocals, takes his auction paddle and swats the air like it's a ping-pong ball. The staredown recommences. The auctioneer looks at me. Attractive women in the room turn to see if this unknown young man who sits alone can triumph against the entourage of rich and powerful mainland Chinese that has so far dominated the auction. My spreadsheet says no.

The victor and his son exchange high-fives with an intensity that is heard across the room, and arguably around the globe. Fine wine auctions have become a sporting event, where instead of boxing gloves, there are IBAN numbers, BIC codes, and checkbooks. But perhaps true competition - as a senior instructor in my martial arts days once told me - must be done without gloves. And so I wonder whether this breed of newly uber-wealthy mainland Chinese will pay for their wine with packets of cash. After all, what could be inside those Louis Vuitton man-purses?

But at the end of the day, their method of payment is of little consequence to me. I hadn't majored in econ to analyze M1 money supply. I'm a wine trader. What I care about is what they buy, so that I can apply that knowledge in conjunction with many other pieces of data, toward making informed decisions. Every time I get outbid, I learn a little more: which brands they prefer, which vintages, which bottle sizes. Could quirky decisions such as declining to take identical lots at the winning price only to pay more for them in outright bidding reveal a small window into their behavioral buying patterns?

I walked out of the auction empty-handed, but got the last bit of information I needed to pile on some bets when the UK markets reopen on Monday.  I'm reminded of the classic quote from "White Men Can't Jump" that ends with, "and sometimes when you lose, you really win." Just this one time, let it be true.