My turn to apologise, cnd, for the delay in replying! (Is there any way to follow threads, getting an email or something when they're replied to?)

I agree that 'ascend' or 'ascension' (or 'ascensional'? wiktionary says it's a word) could be good candidates (do stocks ascend?), but as you say, there's definitely an 'L' sound rather than an 'N' in whatever phrase comes after that, which makes me think that it's 'lie' or something similar rather than 'nigh'. (Initially I was thinking 'essential to life', but 1) I don't hear the 'f' in 'life', and 2) there seems to be more syllables in the first word, sounding more like 'essentional'?)

I'm not sure about the next line, though. The first word could be 'but', but I just don't hear 'banksy', and I think I hear 'his broker' and 'see eye to eye' more than 'had brokered' and 'be eye to eye'.