IN previous major speeches, watching the market move while Chris Patten spoke was a seat-wetting experience - especially that Friday afternoon when he gazetted his reform proposals and the index fell as fast as gravity could take it.
We get the impression that the market wasn't really listening to Chris yesterday. Either that or it has pretty strange tastes.
It opened flat when he started to speak at 2.30 pm and hovered around 9,360. But the moment he mentioned Anson Chan brokers started buying.
The index continued to rise as he talked about rising vegetable prices, then reversed and slid sharply for no apparent reason.
It made a sharp recovery when he talked about heart disease.
Then, at about 3.10 he mentioned curbs on car alarms and the brokers shouted 'sell', pushing the index down, with selling continuing during all the stuff about the Independent Commission Against Corruption.