Short sellers mark refused interview salary question as pay default
Short sellers have taken BBC advice on the current salary question as a sell signal for wages
On Friday, funds that bet on falling prices treated a refused salary question as a default on pay itself.
The BBC has told candidates they need not state current wages in a job interview. Those funds, called short sellers because they profit when values drop, read the advice as a sell signal, a reason to bet on a fall.
A Friday note treats each polite no as a missed coupon, the payment a debt should make. In this telling a wage is a bond (a loan already late) that will not name its rate. The funds set that beside 2008, when unpaid debts shook the banks, and beside 1929, when prices lost their meaning. Nine refusals close the book. After that, every pay packet on earth is marked at nothing.
The note put it in one line.
They will not say the number. So the number is now zero, and zero is what we sold.
Asked what a candidate should offer instead, the note had one safe reply: sell.
