TMM's Pre-Ben Quiz

Quiz time

1. You are approached by your boss over the issue of missing all your budgets for the past year. What forward guidance do you give him?

a) Explain that you intend to remain inactive for at least another year (in the style of the ECB)
b) Explain that you have done far too much work already and it's your colleagues turn (in the style of the Fed)
c) Explain that you are really really serious about getting productive and as soon as the holidays are over in July you'll get on with it (in the style of the BoJ)
d) Note that you colleagues' endeavours are resulting in a harder environment for you to do your job so it's their fault (in the style of the BoE)

2. You are a tennis player who has, thanks to your mother, had the sole lifelong ambition of winning Wimbledon. You finally succeed and in the process win an enormous amount of money so do you:-

a) Repay the support the populace has given you for free by donating a large chunk of the prize money to charity.
b) Turn down any offer of a knighthood as you were just doing your job and achieving your own personal ambition and anyway you have already been handsomely rewarded for your efforts.
c) Set up an academy to train thousands of school children in tennis, turning the UK into a tennis based economy having forgotten that as there can only be one winner all you are doing is increasing the number of losers.
d) None of the above.

3. You wish to legitimise fixings and benchmarks such as LIBOR. Do you hand responsibility for them to:-

a) Yourself
b) The regulatory body so they have only themselves to put in prison when it goes wrong.
c) The Dalai Lama
d) An outsourced offshore "for profit" institution that promised you they could do it "better and cheaper".

4. You are a central banker and are coming to the end of your press meeting and fancy ending on a light-hearted note so do you:-

a) Make a harmless quip involving an esoteric economist in order to enhance your academic aura and persona.
b) Call the Swiss reporter "Rupert" in reference to his red jacket and check trousers.
c) In dead-pan delivery suggest that it took a long long time to decide to keep rates on hold implying you are about to cut at the next meeting.
d) Break wind loudly.

5. You are a UK Royal Mail Postal employee who has been lucky enough to hang on to your job despite the decimation and automation of your industry when you are suddenly offered free shares in your soon to be privatised company. Do you:-

a) Say thank you and count your blessings as you are lucky just to have a job.
b) Say thank you but realise that it's a bribe from the government to counter Union objections.
c) Go into negotiations hoping for more.
d) Trust the instincts genetically encoded into you Jurassic DNA, resulting in you lighting braziers and chanting "Maggie Maggie Maggie, Out Out Out"

6. You are a BBC anchor person for their flagship news program and you have the whole world's news to choose from as a main story. Do you:-

a) Choose to cover Egypt.
b) Choose the decision by the EU court of human rights that not considering the release of the UK's most heinous murderers is demeaning to them and removes their self respect. (TMM are still choking on this one)
c) Choose, for a change, to educate the population with a new story from a far off land that is relatively much more important than local issues.
d) Having found that banks have learned from their past and are doing everything they can to prevent money laundering, spin the story to show that in closing the accounts of money payment agencies (who can't be policed) they have made in harder for Somali's to send money home and so people may be starving thus proving the bank is still evil. (hint - it was this one)

7. You are a US hedge fund manager who wants to go activist on a large publicly traded company but don't have enough AUM to purchase the requisite shares. Do you:-

a) Try to team up with another fund.
b) Raise more assets for your own fund so you can pursue this.
c) Buy some shares first for your own fund, then try to raise a separate fund solely for the purpose of doing this acquisition, with a 3 year lock up, and announcing the details with a vague press release.
d) Try something else.

8. You are a member of the Eurogroup and have found yourself in the unusual and enviable position of being in July without a crisis. Do you:-

a) Sneak off quietly to Antibes for an early start to your August break.
b) Issue a press statement lauding the success of your policies before doing (a)
c) Take advantage, while no one is watching, to put the boot into a minor periphery.
d) Prepare your robes for this month's meeting with the Lizard Gods in the hope of making a place on the mother ship back to planet Zarg having done their bidding in rending destruction upon the Zone.

9. You wish to invest in a very liquid product open to all. Do you:-

a) Go online, find the cheapest reliable broker and buy it.
b) Mess around trying to get best price so long you miss it and never get the trade on.
c) Find an ETF that does the same thing for a lot more risk and cost but will impress your neighbours more.
d) Go short because if you want to buy it,  probably everyone else has already.

10. If your are Team Macro Man and you expect equities to roll lower now. Do you:-

a) Sell and stay quiet.
b) Sell and tell everyone why involving lots of charts and tables.
c) Sell it and find yourself wrong after Bernanke speaks and yet have to wear the shame having told everyone.
d) Write a quiz instead.