Trader’s Narrative

Right now, the bulls are running in Pamplona. The whole town is one giant party with nights and days melding into each other. The locals have long packed up and gone to stay with relatives or to their own vacations, knowing that they will never get any kind of rest if they stay.

Pamplona’s running of the bulls is as close as you are going to get to the total mayhem and debauchery last seen during Roman festivals - which shouldn’t be surprising considering that that is its heritage.

The rules are simple: if you’re going to drink, don’t run. Even with all your wits about you, you’ll have a very difficult time dodging half a tonne of beef barreling toward you, horns first. And if you do run stay well ahead of the bulls and on your feet.

The old cobblestone roads are treacherous and slippery. And I don’t mean just for the human runners. When you find yourself crushed under a mass of mountainous meat, you’ll wish you were merely getting gored by a single horn.

All in all, it is unfortunate that Pamplona is mostly known for the San Fermin festival. Truth is that most large towns in Spain hold annual ‘running of the bulls’. And Pamplona is a beautiful and romantic city which you should visit sometime before July 6th, or after July 14th. But make sure you give the town’s cleaning crew a few weeks time to scrub down the city really well.

Pamplona has amazing restaurants (Caballo Blanco is the only one I still remember), the old part of town has intact ancient wall dating back to the 1500’s, several markets, and much more. If you’re going through northern Spain make sure you take it in.

While the bulls will spend a week running in Pamplona, Wall St. has nary a horn in sight. The last time Wall St. ran with the bulls was almost exactly two years ago.

Perhaps the more apt metaphor for Wall St. right now would be what happens to the bulls after they get to their destination at the bullring.