arbitragr

Yeah it's interesting ... like alot of other stuff you can write puts on the market right now. However you don't have to buy the calls at 100 strike ... well ... not unless you think it's gonna go above 100 (which I don't). That's an unconventional option strategy you got there. So eliminating the calls will get you more of a return. Writing puts take a long time to work out however. The delta is really low. Also ... if SHLD drops below $48 - you lose 100%+ ... Why don't you take a position? ;) Similar thing to the WFC puts you wrote at 30/2011. :)

I don't think 88 is anything similar to now. Rogers was a bit right but ... early 90s were very poor years for stock market. But coming out of that, mid-90s and beyond were exceptionally good.

More like the best bank run in america

thanks for that omagh

only in china but ... ;)

more upside than there is downside.

geez ... i've never gone deep ... what sort of delta are those deep ffh calls on? ??? it's long term i presume; 2011/2012?

anybody got that article that grant wrote about V shape. seems a bit out of character considering he did a pretty good job at signalling some of the housing stress in 2007. i'd have to see his justificaitons and reasoning.

A lot of folks got burned really bad with this latest downturn. I know several folks that went all in at the bottom and are still there.

I wish I was in CA. Lot of first posters but ...

you don't need to necessarily buy gold if you want to hedge usd you can short usd with all sorts of tools and instruments these days here's the wild card: how aggressively will the fed utilize monetar policy to curb inflation. they have the necessary tools to do so.

Funny how he says "decoupling worked, up until Lehman". I don't know how you can say that there is any decoupling in the global economy when China's exports are tied to US consumption.

nice ... thanks for pointing that out. im a big marks fan.

mate ... currency movements are way too complex to be basing it on just monetary policy. 5 years ... I wouldn't have a clue. fiscal, monetary policy? demand pull? stuff like yen-carry trade going on ... export activity? who knows.

If you look at it over a 6 month period (when the Fed's debasement of the USD has been most concerted) the question then becomes; Why is the Australian dollar rising so rapidly against gold? http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t314/ripleyx/Finance/gldvsaud.jpg

Yeah you might have a point regarding the bullishness (bubbleness) of gold. However if you track aud/usd + gld in the short term (e.g. 3-6 months) there's a stronger correlation: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AUDUSD=X&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=gld Tracking gld vs aud/usd over a 5 year period won't show as much correlation b/c the australian economy is tied to other things unrelated to gold; e.g. heavy reliance on financial services and mining/materials, which both have nothing to do with gold. In that case I venture to guess that gold would maintain its value over time more than the aud, just due to the sheer fact that gold isn't an economy with things like financial services in it. It's not only monetary policy. What you'll find with currencies like aud is that the rises and advances tend to do so especially when the resources sector rises and advances. This is in addition to monetary and fiscal policies. Currencies are too complicated to predict, just like making predictions about the macro. I tend to stay away from complex macro stuff. However just sometimes, *sometimes* a call is easy when there are extremes happening in the market. The calling a dead cat bounce when there was a free fall in March was quite easy, and calling an overvaluation of tech stocks in 2000 was easy. The extreme today is the Fed Reserve leveraging up the system again.

haha ... riding the bear ... tilson and LUK own some. I like this .... razor thin margins but ... i still hold slg mind you ... and have shifted into some commodities as of late. ;)

cost structure of oil sands is a lot higher than traditional liquid petroleum ... not in the short term will oil sands be major beneficiaries of commodity supply shortages.

Australia -- few talk about it here. I would not mind being stuck with Australian currency denominated assets given that I'm a dual citizen US/Australia and the place is very nice. I nearly bought WBK (listed on NYSE) but don't understand banking well enough to analyze it. BHP/RIO ... and maybe some junior minors like AGO. Checkout some commercial property too; especially office space around Sydney. e.g. CPA. :)

Inflation does drive down P/E ratios. Main reasons; the market buys high yielding fixed income assets (if and when Chairman Ben decides to raise rates), and they flee US-dollar denominated assets in favor of external currencies and companies in other markets, in our time, this means BRIC. As an example, Chinese markets have gone crazy as of late; 60%+. What you want to try and do is position your portfolio where the earnings will grow faster than the reduction in the "P" of the p/e ratio. In an inflationary environment what sort of assets and which companies have earnings that go up? That should be your answer. Or else you can get out of the US dollar and invest overseas, which is what the world has been doing the last 6 months or so, as evidenced by the fall in USD. If and when the Fed stops printing and the USD starts coming back up you come back into the game in the US. Personally, I like commodity/resource companies, and maybe some real estate.

Down.

Hey Eric, may I ask why you didn't do it for the Jan 2012 ones? Too long? Premium is higher but ...

Yeah you're right about this Sharp. As I think about it. I remember WEB says things along the lines of "if you're rich, to give up what you've got for more by using leverage and potentially risking it all is foolish" when he talks about LTCM. And he says stuff like "reputation is more important than money" to his line managers at BRK. WEB is definitely alot more conservative these days. He's got a good life too so why not. He still invested in two Irish banks that failed but. ;)

haha ... Buffett is becoming a fashionista: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aU_AOzBtlYtg The video is here: http://www.trands.com/bft.asp

biggest mistake i made this year was not buying those damn ORH call options a few months ago when Eric said so!!! :D :D