Saudi Arabia is preparing to lift the hem of its robes a few inches, allowing gawkers to assess the firmness of its financial footing. Energy minister Khalid al-Falih says the kingdom will publish an audited total for its oil reserves. Western investors see this as a prerequisite for the flotation of Saudi Aramco, the national energy company optimistically valued at up to $2tn.
The longest session of Spoof in the history of the world may thus be ending. Since the eighties, world oil prices have been based partly on the belief that the country has reserves of about 260bn barrels. As in the alcohol-fuelled gambling game - which is hard to play in Saudi Arabia without getting arrested - the government plans to reveal a number it has concealed.
It would be extraordinary if the house of Saud has really been sitting on exactly 260bn barrels of oil for all 36 years. Its geologists would have needed to identify new reserves at the pace old ones were depleted, in volumes fluctuating inversely to the oil price.
The figure is more likely to have often been wrong. We may surmise it is now within a camel's spitting distance of 260bn, though. If the number was far lower, other Opec members would diss the Saudis as lightweights, who would then have to sit next to the Omanis on the coach back to the airport after cartel meetings. If the figure was much higher, young Saudis would question the necessity for learning to craft contemporary furniture and other post-carbon jobs.
A variation on this theme comes from Per Magnus Nysveen of consultancy Rystad Energy. He believes 260bn represents remaining recoverable oil rather than the minimum roustabouts could tap. This might stand at about 70bn. Knowing the difference is imperfectly understood, Mr Falih may be poised to reveal a higher contingent number. That would justify a recoverable figure of 100bn and a value for Aramco of some $1tn.
If you think the above sounds like a shaggy dog story disguised as a valuation hypothesis, you'd be right. And be warned. The fun is only just starting in a caper set to suck in every spreadsheet jockey in energy finance.
Jeff Bezos, famed for his barking laugh, once likened Amazon to a cheetah, writes Kate Burgess. Wrong. Amazon is more akin to a hyena, an uber-aggressive hunter that drives cheetahs off their kills. The spotted cats are on the decline, hit by competition for food. Hyenas have bone-cracking jaws, can live for days on scraps and are Africa's most ubiquitous carnivore.
Hold that thought when looking at Amazon's deal to deliver a bigger range of fresh food supplied by Morrisons.
The supermarket was the laggard in retailing groceries online. It looks less like a prey species now. But delivering food to the door is an art and shoppers are loyal, say observers who think Amazon will struggle to win sales
They underestimate the US group's voracious appetite for expansion, even at the expense of short-term profits - a strategy tolerated by its investors.
British grocers should be so lucky. Their margins on online retailing are thin, eroded by deflation and heavy costs. They will fall further as predator numbers rise and Sainsbury cranks up its online business. HSBC says home delivery is already lossmaking when promotions are properly costed in. Tesco, which controls close to half the online grocery market, has argued its home delivery business brings shoppers to its stores. Yet it is signalling a retreat from the watering hole, holding off promotions that draw customers to their keyboards.
It is worth noting: hyenas usually have the last laugh.
If you are an optimistic Brexiter, consider investing in British Land. Property values should leap if the UK becomes more prosperous when freed from the yoke of Brussels. BL's returns would be higher than for Land Securities, its main rival, because debt, at 32 per cent of building values, is almost 50 per cent heftier.
At present, though, steeper gearing seems a curse rather than a blessing. Shares in BL have dropped 15 per cent over the past six months against a 12 per cent decline at Land. The fall in both stocks seems overdone. BL's net asset value per share has dropped 3 per cent to 891p compared with 2 per cent for Land.
Yet BL has qualms of its own over Brexit. The company is, for example, talking up prospects for Broadgate, a bulwark of City office space, as a diverse and groovy "campus".
Lombard would prefer hip "creatives" to be excluded from financial districts by armed guards. But the diversification of Broadgate could prove timely if there is an exodus of bankers to EU centres.
Critics who say BL was wrong to sell half the development in 2009 should meanwhile eat their hats. The move limited single-estate risk back then, and is doing so again now.