Piggy Basket produced a row of numbers. The sequence “0.5, 0.3, 0.2,” for example, would signify that the currency portfolio should be 50 percent yen, 30 percent deutsche marks, and 20 percent Swiss francs. After the Piggy Basket churned out its recommendations for about forty different futures contracts, a staffer would get in touch with the firm’s broker and deliver buy-and-sell instructions based on those proportions. The system produced automated trade recommendations, rather than automated trades, but it was the best Simons could do at the time.
