User 305589

Option Spreads With Large Upside and Limited Downside

hm, let me get this straight: you talk of 'large upside and limited downside' - yet when looking at your vertical call spreads that you suggest, you have an upside of 108-150% and a downside of - 100%(!!)
I am myself doing a variety of vertical call spreads as well as calendar spreads, but frankly, your suggested trades look more like a gamble.
Your strike prices are so precariously close to each other and at the same time mostly out of the money and pretty near to expiration. For instance, the SPY calls with 92 strike have only a slightly higher probability of expiring in the money than have the 93s. It's basically a coin toss, imho.

I do like call spreads, though, but I use them either with long term options for stocks that are grossly undervalued imo, and then I go quite deep out of the money for 3.1 or 4:1 upside/downside.
Or I may target stocks which I consider to be a t rock bottom valuations with very little downside left and then chose calls that are in the money while selling calls at or slightly out of the money.

Goldman Sachs Busy Editing Conviction Buy and Sell Lists

These hectic changes to their buy- and sell-lists are exactly what you would expect from GS which has already played a quite dubious role in the market meltdown as well as in its recent melt-up. You would have to be very naive if you thought that their trading desk hasn't positioned itself ahead of publishing these changes to take full advantage of the herd's reactions. I wouldn't be surprised at all when most of their additions to the buy list were stocks their trading desk has accumulated over the past week and is only too eager to sell now at higher prices. Likewise, the new conviction sells may well consist of stocks that GS has shorted and would like to cover at lower prices.
beware following Goldman's advice. GS makes money from its clients - not for its clients and their market calls are not to serve you or me but to only serve the folks at GS.

The Three Riskiest Banks - American Banker

Almost nobody really has a clue about any one bank - because very few people know how to really analyze them, take up the time and look at all the stuff that is on and off their balance sheets. Yet, gazillions of writers, academics, journalists, politicians and other talking /writing heads somehow feel the need and desire to come up with their opinions and assessments and they are usually in strong language. Even though these are actually, at best, uninformed guesses.
Why can't all they guys and gals simply shut up and keep talking and writing about stuff they understand? they add no value, they don't add anything but another bit of noise.
As if the world wasn't overflowing from noise already.
It's sickening.