Iconoclast421

Warning: The Coming Credit Dislocation

Oh my gods!! Another "so it begins..." thread from Karl! Looks like it is once again time to buy Citi $5 calls!

The Next Shoe to Drop in Banking: An Options Strategy

Selling XLF calls for a nickel is quite insane. Why not just buy dec 14 calls and 16 puts. Then you make money as long as XLF rises OR falls roughly 75 cents from the recent highs. What are the odds of XLF staying within that range for the next 3 months? Ha!

All you need is one of these positions to double in order to lock in the profit. It is quite possible that they both would double at some point.

The New Bull Market Fallacy

If you think the dollar is going to "strengthen violently" sometime in the next couple few months, then why not go with UUP Dec 24 calls? Should yield better than SPY puts. (SPY puts seem to have a lot of speculation priced in already.)

Nothing Suggests We're Anywhere Near the Bottom

I'm having trouble understanding where that 50% number came from. I think the Chiang screwed up, or something happened last april that skewed the data. Here's some other data from the report: "Retail sales were down $2.6 billion
(-12.5%), personal income taxes fell by
$9.2 billion (-19.7%), and corporate taxes
were $614 million lower (-7.5%) than last
year’s total at the end of April."

So for the first 4 months of 2009, personal income taxes are down by 20%.