"That's funny, this new billionaire is over 130 years old.  To old to enjoy it!"  But when they tried to contact him, there was no reply.  The address was even wrong.  Yet the account was "active" and it kept making money.

Many years earlier, a computer whiz created a stock market analysis program that would initiate buy and sell orders by itself, with no human intervention required.  He lived in a remote place, where no one asked questions, or even cared about his quiet comings and goings.  He took extensive vacations with some of the earnings.  To safeguard against power outages, he rigged-up a UPS, and arranged to have the computer pay the electric bill electronically.  He disappeared on a trip, but since he lived alone no one reported his disappearance.  His computer kept operating, and making money.   Decades passed after his death, until this day that someone at the brokerage firm took note of the successful account.  The mystery investor had been reported in "richest men" surveys as a "recluse."  No one suspected he was dead.

Even now, people at the company suspected the man's estate had been given to children, who neglected to notify them of the change in ownership.  This would be an embarassment, due to the growing publicity of having achieved billionaire status, and the records had to be straightened out.

But where was the mysterious owner?  Buy/sell orders could not be traced, as they went through a foreign e-mail  forwarding service that sent them off to their final destination without a trace of how it got to them.  There was nothing in the laws that prevented someone from controlling an account this way, and there was also no rules against someone older than the oldest human from holding and "controlling" an account.  Nevertheless, it would be an embarrassment to the brokerage firm to have such an account.

The press learned about the mysterious account, and reported it.  Transactions, which were legally within the public domain, were reported, and people began to mimick the mytery person's transactions with their accounts.  More and more people were making money in step with the mystery money-maker, but they didn't know who to thank.

Years passed, and still no one had located the mystery investment wizard.  Analyses of a century of trading transactions revealed a consistent pattern, starting with a meager $5000.  It was difficult to understand how any two, or possibly three people, could think so consistently.

A doctoral student chose to study this case.  He had a theory that a wise old man had passed on his secret to his son, who did the same for his son.  His goal was to locate the current decision-maker, and reveal the family history.

The transaction records showed a pattern of poor decisions whenever events in the news should have tipped off anybody that events had abruptly conspired against an investment.  One buy request was for an oil importing company just as war broke out between the country serving as a major oil source and its neighbor.  The student took this to be an important clue.

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This site opened:  October 30, 1998.   Last Update: October 30, 1998