bearfund

Caterpillar's Troubling Bond Issue

The market really has it backwards. Who would you rather have owe you money: a corporation with cash, inventory, and plant, that is consistently profitable and is unable to print money to pay its obligations, or a corrupt government printing money and going deeper into debt at an accelerating rate while its tax base erodes by the day? And PS, there is often no recovery in sovereign defaults. If CAT goes belly-up its assets will be sold off and you will receive the proceeds.

Options Trader: Monday Outlook

A huge CPI number? No way. There's nothing to be optimistic about here, but the government is not honest about inflation. Those retail sales adjusted for true inflation would be way down, but that's exactly why. I expect a number around 0.1%. After all, they got away with "flat" last month, so why bother making it believable this time? This number has been so obviously and thoroughly manipulated for so long that no one even wastes time laughing at it any longer. Its only value is that it tells us what the government wants us to believe.

What I'm curious about is why there's so little action in TNX calls. Some sharpie is long 4044 contracts in March 09 at 42.50, a position I assume he entered at a price much lower than today's $5.00 ask. If there were any trading at all in this market I'd be jumping in with both feet.