Monday, September 29, 2008
NLV $8300
Short VIX wiped out my account. Further crashes will be completely devastating. I think this might be it. I caught a black swan.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
What can $700 billions get you
Instead of propping up banks for $700 billions, we can maybe, buyout a country.
We can use $700 billions to buy out a country. Randomly assigning 10x GDP for political stable countries and 3-5x GDP for political unstable countries. $700 billions can be use to buy out countries with $70 billion GDP or less:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
A lot of African countries and Caribbean Islands can be bought with $700 billions.
What else can we do with $700 billions:
We can establish 10-20 "Ivy League/Well-Established" universities each with endowment fund of $10-30 billions.
Give back taxpayers their money - each of us will get ~$2000 back.
Buy 5,000 F-22s Fighter Jets at $138 millions a piece.
Buy ~200 billions $3 Big Macs from Mickey Ds.
Buy 3.5 millions Ferrari F430s at $200k a piece. Or buy 3.5 millions houses at $200k a piece (avg house price).
Buy 2.8 billions Nintendo Wii - the world would be a happier place.
Pay back 8% of national debt.
Buy 7 billions barrel of oil at $100 a piece. At current consumption rate of ~9 million barrels a day, we can last two years.
Buy up JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America and still have money left.
"Damn, I can't think of ways to spend $700 billions"
We can use $700 billions to buy out a country. Randomly assigning 10x GDP for political stable countries and 3-5x GDP for political unstable countries. $700 billions can be use to buy out countries with $70 billion GDP or less:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
A lot of African countries and Caribbean Islands can be bought with $700 billions.
What else can we do with $700 billions:
We can establish 10-20 "Ivy League/Well-Established" universities each with endowment fund of $10-30 billions.
Give back taxpayers their money - each of us will get ~$2000 back.
Buy 5,000 F-22s Fighter Jets at $138 millions a piece.
Buy ~200 billions $3 Big Macs from Mickey Ds.
Buy 3.5 millions Ferrari F430s at $200k a piece. Or buy 3.5 millions houses at $200k a piece (avg house price).
Buy 2.8 billions Nintendo Wii - the world would be a happier place.
Pay back 8% of national debt.
Buy 7 billions barrel of oil at $100 a piece. At current consumption rate of ~9 million barrels a day, we can last two years.
Buy up JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America and still have money left.
"Damn, I can't think of ways to spend $700 billions"
NLV $17600 Wachovia on the chopping block
Shorting VIX has its consequences. It soaked up all my buying power.
By trading in a deadbeat summer, I would like to remind myself the following:
1. Reduce position/stop trading during summer months- dog days of summer is for beaches, nothing good ever came out of trading in summertime.
2. Apple stock moves when there's a product announcement- earning announcement is a non-factor- unless they missed like RIMM did. RIMM on the other hand, is an earning play.
3. Trading the S&P500 is dangerous, I'll stick with the cubes (QQQQ).
4. Oil is still sh**, there is definitely more room to go- pure technical.
5. Market doesn't always trade on fundamental- this week we are trading on bailout plan- ignoring all the crappy econ numbers.
A word on Wachovia:
1. If the bailout plan come through, WB can jump a good 30-40% as they need to get rid of their mortgages ASAP.
2. If the bailout plan failed, don't look for any potential bidder, there won't be any. WB will likely get the shaft up their butt like WaMu did.
JPM paid $1.9 bil for WaMu, what exactly did he buy? Whatever it is, it was much cheaper than $7 bil he offered them couple months back. Only JPM buys bottoms, no one else can. Ask Ken Lewis at BoFA.
Jamie Dimon is definitely feeling "the Woo Hoo!" (www.wamu.com)
Analyst's trade of the day :
Short BAC, Long JPM
By trading in a deadbeat summer, I would like to remind myself the following:
1. Reduce position/stop trading during summer months- dog days of summer is for beaches, nothing good ever came out of trading in summertime.
2. Apple stock moves when there's a product announcement- earning announcement is a non-factor- unless they missed like RIMM did. RIMM on the other hand, is an earning play.
3. Trading the S&P500 is dangerous, I'll stick with the cubes (QQQQ).
4. Oil is still sh**, there is definitely more room to go- pure technical.
5. Market doesn't always trade on fundamental- this week we are trading on bailout plan- ignoring all the crappy econ numbers.
A word on Wachovia:
1. If the bailout plan come through, WB can jump a good 30-40% as they need to get rid of their mortgages ASAP.
2. If the bailout plan failed, don't look for any potential bidder, there won't be any. WB will likely get the shaft up their butt like WaMu did.
JPM paid $1.9 bil for WaMu, what exactly did he buy? Whatever it is, it was much cheaper than $7 bil he offered them couple months back. Only JPM buys bottoms, no one else can. Ask Ken Lewis at BoFA.
Jamie Dimon is definitely feeling "the Woo Hoo!" (www.wamu.com)
Analyst's trade of the day :
Short BAC, Long JPM
Friday, September 26, 2008
NET LIQ VALUE: $31,727.15
Just a quick update.
Got back from Vegas (and L.A.) and AC a few days ago. Started playing craps and it is SOOO fun!
anyways, most of my SHLD short vertical calls expired worthless ($$$), except the naked call for $100. That got assigned when it closed at about $103. When I woke up in L.A. at around 10am or 12pm EST and found out it was trading at around $96.99 and I quickly covered for a tidy profit. This was 5 contracts, so short 500 shares of vanilla equity.
Started trading the VIX, currently have some naked calls expiring in October; several options, strike ranging from $37.75 - $42.75. I believe it is cash settled because I can't trade the VIX itself.
My ES day trading is doing pretty swell as well. :)
That's all folks!
Got back from Vegas (and L.A.) and AC a few days ago. Started playing craps and it is SOOO fun!
anyways, most of my SHLD short vertical calls expired worthless ($$$), except the naked call for $100. That got assigned when it closed at about $103. When I woke up in L.A. at around 10am or 12pm EST and found out it was trading at around $96.99 and I quickly covered for a tidy profit. This was 5 contracts, so short 500 shares of vanilla equity.
Started trading the VIX, currently have some naked calls expiring in October; several options, strike ranging from $37.75 - $42.75. I believe it is cash settled because I can't trade the VIX itself.
My ES day trading is doing pretty swell as well. :)
That's all folks!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
NLV $22400
Cover the short on those VIX calls.
Shorted 10 Oct 27.5 calls and 25 Oct 30 calls instead.
Shorted 10 Oct 27.5 calls and 25 Oct 30 calls instead.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Lehman Part II
Lehman saga continues with the crooks from government trying to take down another investment bank by having an emergency meeting.
The solution is simple- Lehman should buy itself out. With market values of $3 bil, they can take themselves private for $5 bil.
Lehman can then do away with the short sellers and media - which is trying to profit by destroying the firm. The book value of the firm is $26 bil, even writing down its $30 bil real estate assets by another half - Lehman still worth $13 bil. By taking itself private, Lehman can survive - with bunch of pissed-off ex-shareholders.
+800 sh LEH.
The solution is simple- Lehman should buy itself out. With market values of $3 bil, they can take themselves private for $5 bil.
Lehman can then do away with the short sellers and media - which is trying to profit by destroying the firm. The book value of the firm is $26 bil, even writing down its $30 bil real estate assets by another half - Lehman still worth $13 bil. By taking itself private, Lehman can survive - with bunch of pissed-off ex-shareholders.
+800 sh LEH.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
NLV $24900 Where will Lehman be?
5 MER puts came back for me. Very nice. The Sept. USO calls look like they are done for.
Lehman is hitting the rock hard, quote my friends :
An ex-Lehman employee: Lehman is done
A current Citi employee: i'm actually glad i work for Citigroup today
A current Lehman employee (after I asked her for Lehman shirt and sweater) : idiot! shit aint a joke!
The tension is definitely high.
Note: My PnL is on par with Thomas' now. But I shall destroy him like a Cat 5 hurricane by the end of the year.
Lehman is hitting the rock hard, quote my friends :
An ex-Lehman employee: Lehman is done
A current Citi employee: i'm actually glad i work for Citigroup today
A current Lehman employee (after I asked her for Lehman shirt and sweater) : idiot! shit aint a joke!
The tension is definitely high.
Note: My PnL is on par with Thomas' now. But I shall destroy him like a Cat 5 hurricane by the end of the year.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
$24000 NLV
Shorted some cubes (QQQQ) at the $46s and 47s. Crashed hard for couple of days. +8.5k
Long USO in front of Gustav - ripped up on this one. -5k
Apple short expired worthless. -3k
As Apple hosted its "Let's Rock" event, the stock tanked back where I started shorting. Lesson learned- Apple only moves on these products announcement date. And look at Steve Jobs, his skinniest is directly correlated with the thinness of his product. As the iPod touch get thinner, so does Steve.
I still question Steve Job's health here. Apple is a $120 stock in disguise.
On the other front, Goldman's earnings will be out next week - have a little bullish feeling on this one as GS is getting sold with this Lehman news. Not sticking my head out for them as there might be couple billions of write down coming. I would short Morgan Stanley instead.
I'm just glad the summer dullness and light volumes days are over. I should not trade during summer time- never had good trades or good reasons to trade. Next year I'm taking a 2 months vacation.
R.I.P. Fannie and Freddie, you guys were such a great couple. Sad to see you go.
Long USO in front of Gustav - ripped up on this one. -5k
Apple short expired worthless. -3k
As Apple hosted its "Let's Rock" event, the stock tanked back where I started shorting. Lesson learned- Apple only moves on these products announcement date. And look at Steve Jobs, his skinniest is directly correlated with the thinness of his product. As the iPod touch get thinner, so does Steve.
I still question Steve Job's health here. Apple is a $120 stock in disguise.
On the other front, Goldman's earnings will be out next week - have a little bullish feeling on this one as GS is getting sold with this Lehman news. Not sticking my head out for them as there might be couple billions of write down coming. I would short Morgan Stanley instead.
I'm just glad the summer dullness and light volumes days are over. I should not trade during summer time- never had good trades or good reasons to trade. Next year I'm taking a 2 months vacation.
R.I.P. Fannie and Freddie, you guys were such a great couple. Sad to see you go.
Monday, September 8, 2008
NET LIQ VALUE: $29,911.19
Jeez! it's been a while since i've posted. my fx account pretty much blew up. it was a good lesson learned. way over leveraged and fx is too slow for me (although i have touched the futures and they move f'n fast).
i spoke with a trader last weekend and he taught me some neat stuff, mostly psychological. i think i'm starting to get the hang of futures trading--making sure i have hard stops in place. lesson learned though, i lost more than $3,000 last thursday trying to swing trade the ES, but that thing tanked HARD. picked up a couple of ES options and then we find out that the US gov't is bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That put me in the money of around $1,500, although I covered quite quickly. While picking up the call options, I quickly learned that I'm an idiot. It seems that these future options trade around the clock (stock options trade only during trading hours), so the spread was huge and my bid for the options was only a couple of dimes under the highest bid--so that set me back a good amount before the day even opened.
I'm heading over to the west coas for a trip this Wednesday, so I'm not sure if i will be trading much. I don't want any positions open while i'm gone but I am still short those SHLD vertical calls. Let's hope SHLD closes under $100 next week (even though it has touched $95 and that's getting me a bit nervous).
Good trading all!
i spoke with a trader last weekend and he taught me some neat stuff, mostly psychological. i think i'm starting to get the hang of futures trading--making sure i have hard stops in place. lesson learned though, i lost more than $3,000 last thursday trying to swing trade the ES, but that thing tanked HARD. picked up a couple of ES options and then we find out that the US gov't is bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That put me in the money of around $1,500, although I covered quite quickly. While picking up the call options, I quickly learned that I'm an idiot. It seems that these future options trade around the clock (stock options trade only during trading hours), so the spread was huge and my bid for the options was only a couple of dimes under the highest bid--so that set me back a good amount before the day even opened.
I'm heading over to the west coas for a trip this Wednesday, so I'm not sure if i will be trading much. I don't want any positions open while i'm gone but I am still short those SHLD vertical calls. Let's hope SHLD closes under $100 next week (even though it has touched $95 and that's getting me a bit nervous).
Good trading all!
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