BEAT THE COUCH · THE ARCHIVE · THE LTCM AUTUMN

Could You Have Timed the Asian Crisis and LTCM?

THE WINDOW: OCT 1, 1997 TO SEP 30, 1999 · 504 TRADING DAYS

A mini-crash in October 1997, a Russian default and a hedge fund collapse in 1998. The couch fell 19% and still ended with $13,892. Only 16.0% of 1,460 players beat it.

THE COUCH'S $10,000, DAY BY DAY, REAL DAILY DATA

$10,000 START $13,892 Oct 1, 1997 Sep 30, 1999

What the couch did

ENDED WITH$13,892 (+38.9%)
WORST DRAWDOWN-19% by Aug 31, 1998
WORST SINGLE DAY-6.9% Oct 27, 1997
BEST SINGLE DAY+5.1% Oct 28, 1997
CASH INSTEAD (T-BILLS)+10.0%

What happened

October 1997. Asian currencies are collapsing. On October 27 the market falls so fast the exchanges halt trading. The next day it has one of its best days in years.

August 1998. Russia defaults. Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund run by Nobel laureates, loses almost everything and the Fed organizes a rescue. The market drops 19% by Aug 31, 1998. Every one of these headlines sounded like the start of the next 1929.

None of them were. The couch held through all of it and finished the window with $13,892, +38.9%. The dot-com bubble was still ahead.

What the players did

GAMES FROM THIS YEAR1,460
BEAT THE COUCH16.0%
CERTIFIED SKILL11.0%
MEDIAN TRADES4
MEDIAN TIME IN MARKET55%

Player figures cover every game whose window started in 1997, not only the exact hand above, and come from the run export of October 31, 2026. A win counts as SKILL only if it beats 90% of 1,000 monkeys replaying the same window with the same trade count and the same time in the market. Across the thirty windows in this archive players beat the couch 39.2% of the time, because these are the famous years. Across the whole ledger the couch wins 62% of 120,800 games.

The read

16.0% of 1,460 players beat the couch, among the worst human results in the archive. The median player finished -11.1% behind. Two real panics in two years and both were buying opportunities. This window does not punish fear. It punishes acting on it.

Play this exact windowfree, no signup, about two minutes. Same two years, same data, no hindsight.

Frequently asked

How much did the stock market fall in the 1998 LTCM crisis?

In this window the couch fell 19% at the worst, by Aug 31, 1998, then recovered to end with $13,892 of $10,000.

Did selling during the 1997 Asian financial crisis pay off?

Rarely. In windows starting in 1997 only 16.0% of players beat a couch that held through both panics.

Method: real S&P 500 daily total returns, dividends included, calibrated to Damodaran's annual series; cash earns 3-month T-bills. The same data the game deals. See the evidence page for sources, and the full ledger for the whole ledger.

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Not financial advice. The couch is not licensed for anything.