Recent content by PlinytheTrader

I am an analyst at a government pension fund. It gets boring at times but I get to meet a lot of smart private equity and hedge fund guys, plus a lot of dumb ones.

With those "returns" you are claiming, it sounds like you are not short MCD, but actually long. You're selling puts, 15 contracts at a time, at a price higher than when this thread started. Plus, even if you are short MCD, I doubt you are short anywhere near $150K anyways. If the stock opens...

I take it from this question and your other responses that you don't have an MBA, but yet seem to pass yourself off as an authority on the subject. An MBA, along with most other degrees, are valuable, but only in certain circumstances. I agree with you that most of the courses taught are not...

I am both a renter and an owner and neither is much better than the other. I live in SF, and renting is a nightmare. 14% rental increases may be a little on the low end. Its routine to see increases of 50%-100% year over year depending on the neighborhood you live in and what sort of building...

How is this thread still going? Back in April, the OP claimed MCD would be out of business within 5 years, and since then the stock has outperformed the market by approx 10% and is hitting all time highs as of today...

Agreed. I analyze and track hedge funds as part of my job and we use some combination of LIBOR +% to benchmark our funds over the long run as a proxy for opportunity cost. Ranging from LIBOR + 3%-6% depending on the expected volatility of the strategy. In the short run, and when trying to...

True. Benchmarks do serve a purpose and I am not suggesting investors don't use them. You need someway of knowing whether or not your investment was a good idea. To me, the best option is to have various measuring sticks to analyze your investment from various angles.

Hedge funds should be compared to similar funds/indices that offer the same strategy. Event driven funds should be compared to other event driven funds, credit funds should be compared to other credit funds or a specific credit index that mirrors the strategy, long/short funds vs. other...

I have been using the app for the past couple of months and really like it. However, like others have said I don't know if I would ever use it as my full time trading broker. I only have around $500 in my account and use it for swing trading or other medium term trades. The zero commissions...

I had a Shake Shack burger at JFK a few months ago when I was back east for work. It was decent but not great, but it also might have something to do with them screwing my order up. The line was over 20 people long, so you can't doubt the popularity for now at least. I prefer the burgers at In...

They put these in at a new McDonald's that just popped up down the street from me in downtown SF. They look cool but were a real pain to use. It was difficult to get your order in and took about 3 times as long to complete the process than using a real person. The order system wasn't streamlined...

Do you work in healthcare? If not, how do you know that no one in the industry is interested in reducing costs? Facebook received a lot more than $400m in funding before going public. Facebook had multiple funding rounds in the $100's of millions and received funding of $1.5B alone in 2010...

The problem is that a majority of pension funds are dumb investors. They are more concerned with hitting their return targets than complicated market stuff. These HFT and spoofing issues are on such a granular level in the market that it goes over most people's heads. Plus many pension funds...

The title of your post says you made these returns currently working at a "hedge fund Co on their platform". What hedge fund are you at right now and why aren't they interested?

Are you using a margin account or a cash account? If you are borrowing on margin, then your premium will be deducted from your net margin balance and not exactly show up as cash on hand. As Victor mentioned, your option position should show as a -1 since you sold it short, and most likely you...