The market has spoken

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122841405751279981.html?mod

Citadel Down 13% in November

By GREGORY ZUCKERMAN and JENNY STRASBURG
A bad year for hedge-fund titan Kenneth Griffin got much worse last month.
Mr. Griffin's Citadel Investment Group lost about 13% in November, bringing the Chicago hedge fund giant's investment decline this year to 47%, according to investors.

hummm 47% sounds really familiar to another number....

I find it ironic that the big fancy multi-strategy market neutral hedge fund has a beta = 1 and exact same loss as the broader market. well played

Craziness

Given Lehman, everyone is glued to the CDS prices. A CDS is a credit default swap and essentially grants the holder credit protection against a counterparty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap

Latest Bloomberg CDS prices and changes (over LIBOR):

Brokers:
GS 485/510 +160bps
MER 535/585 +200bps
MS 800/830 +320bps

Banks:
BAC 245/280 +45bps
JPM 235/270 +45bps
WB 725/765 +80bps
WFC 235/265 +40bps
WM 53/57pnts +5pts
Citi 370/400 +90bps
CSFB USA 90/100 +10bps

Europe:
DB 160/175 +60bps
Barc 190/200 +25bps
UBS 220/240 +50bps
RBS 200/220 +50bps
Credit Suisse Group 150/170 +40bps


One can interpret this as the market's view on who is next in line to fall (Morgan Stanley).

Also, I lost $500 yesterday :(

Sept.

Historically awful month:

Not a lot of new action for me. Still riding MBIA, NVDA, some SDD, recently put some savings in a AAA corp bond fund.

genuine alpha or unforseen beta

Still sitting in MBIA. Saw a lot of interest/volume at my $15 mark yesterday. People are starting to realize that this may not be far fetched for Jan '09. The price hasn't moved nearly as much as I would have hoped. The delta on this play is disgustingly low.....

Great idea

So much for financials hitting bottom... Sector down (3%) today.

MBIA has turned out to be a great play. The equity is up over 60% since entry. My option has not moved much though because the market is not pricing this as a sustainable gain.

At least I beat the professional money in....

Back in the game.... Biggest question out there: have financials hit bottom? Most saying no, I am saying yes.

Bought Jan 09 MBI $15 Call for $50 (2 lots). Strictly a technical play. The 52week high is around 70! Any retracement to even 10 in the next couple months could mean big $$. Some pnl and delta analysis is interesting (and difficult to interpret):


Monoline insurers :/

Hopefully Jan is far enough out for something to materialize

O how the tides change. RIMM plummeted on its earnings release. It is trading around 108 last time I checked. My puts (had I not exited) would be worth around $1700. Real gains of 112%. Insane. Really sad I missed out on making this money.

Check out this screenshot of RIMM on earnings day:



I have a bet in the office that the DOW reaches 4 digits within the month. Opening low and already in the 10k.

All my holdings are currently cash.....

RIMM pre earnings news: Outlook...
Glad I am out.

Don't have any trades in mind at the moment. The only smart play seems to be volatility which is hard to access. Right now oil buyers and sellers are just exchanging PnL back and forth each day it seems.

Been working a million hours lately so little time to play around.

Exited RIMM a couple days ago. Lost $80 overall.

I had really poor entry timing and didn't take profits when I had chance (I was up almost $400 at one point).

I liked my analysis and upped my short bet at the (then) 52 week high. Ballsy looking back. Overall, dad execution and happy to be out of the trade. I do have a very good feel for how RIMM moves and reacts.


Have about $2k sitting cash now.... Looking for a new play but very tentative given the volatility (see VIX)

Interesting tool here on the bottom of this page:
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Favorites.CServlet?obj=msummary&cmd=show,iday[Y]&disp=SXA

The Bullish Percent Indices is a market breadth indicator that is calculated by dividing the number of stocks in a given group (an exchange, an industry, etc.) that are currently trading with Point and Figure buy signals, by the total number of stocks in that group.


A dip over 30% represents substantial overselling and a good opp to go long into a sector.

Crazy Day

Crazy market day.

Oil up +$11 to $139. Incredible call by Goldman commodities research to forecast $142 by the start of the summer. When that came out, I think it was at 120ish. There is now talk to a rally of > $150.

Gas at $6 a gallon in LA....


Huge drop in the Dow. Almost 400 points. Nuts.

Stocks of note today:
^VIX +26%
BCS -8%

Strong personal gains on my RIM Puts. May cash out after the release of the new Apple phone next week.

Back from a much needed vacation.... Out 4 business days and come back to:

In other news, this is wild (if they work):
http://seekingalpha.com/article/75593-triple-shot-leveraged-etfs-on-their-way