Vermont Business Magazine Imagine standing in the grocery store, looking at a pile of bananas. On your side of the pile, the manager has posted yesterday's newspaper flyer, showing bananas at 62¢ per pound—so that's what you pay at the register. But on the other side of the pile, there's an up-to-the-minute screen showing that the price of bananas has now dropped to 48¢ per pound—so that's what the guy over there pays. Exact same bananas, but the price you see depends on which aisle you're standing in.
Even in cartoon form [below], some refer to our simple map of the stock market as a gigantic bowl of spaghetti.