'Never mind the details – there are ways of using options so that you will make money if the price falls. It is called short selling. Our investor – once we tell him about your invasion plans – will begin betting that V.O.C. stock will drop soon. And rest assured, it will. Only a few years ago, mere rumors about the state of Anglo/Dutch relations were sufficient to depress the price by ten or twenty percent. News of an invasion will plunge it through the floor. '