Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:05:51 EDT

From: "Timothy M. Ennis" 72120.2224[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COMPUSERVE.COM

Subject: Re: Chinese Fire Drill



While I don't claim to know the origin of Chinese Fire Drill, I can attest to

its popular use on Wall Street in the 1980's. It was used to describe a

situation where some piece of news would cause the market to lurch violently

in one direction. Then as traders were buying at the highs a reinterprtation

of the original info would cause massive selling as traders liquidated and

tried to get short at the bottom. Finally the market would reorient itself to

unchanged prices with traders licking their wounds and counting their losses.



This type of market action was also called "pigs in space."