| Kippreport.com

From rags to riches

October 14, 2009 3:28 by kippreport

A 63-year-old homeless man in Russia has managed to become a stock market trader after selling thousands of empty booze bottles for cash, reports Reuters, citing local paper Tvoi Den. Leonid Konovalov told the paper that he collected around 2,000 bottles a day over the last year since the financial crisis hit Russia.

“Russians are drinking a little bit more due to the crisis, and this helped me get out of the rubbish dump,” he said. According to Reuters, a glass bottle can sell for around 2 rubles ($0.06).

Konovalov said that his two grandchildren encouraged him to invest in the stock market and that his first transaction was a 50,000 euro ($74,120) share-purchase.

To be fair, for all the criticism the global financial crisis has received in the last year, it seems to have done at least a little good, and deserves some credit. Do you agree?

Tags: booze bottles, Financial Crisis, Russia, stock trade