“Do you have any shares in the stock market?” Khalid asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“You didn’t read the newspapers today? Yesterday was an unusual day for the Kuwait Stock Exchange. The volume of trade was more than 1.8 billion Kuwaiti dinars. That’s more than 6.5 billion U.S. dollars. Can you imagine that?”
I wanted to tell him that I had never entered the stock exchange building. I barely even looked at it if I ever went past it.
“This is probably a singular situation, though markets have a habit of stabilizing. In fact, I’m actually wondering whether a financial disaster is on its way.”
The tide was slowly receding as our meeting progressed. I looked at Khalid and I didn’t know what to say.
“Do you know where the paradox lies?” he asked.
“Where?”
“The stock exchange turns over billions
