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Certainly, these funds do what they're intended to do: provide insurance in the time of exploding vol, e.g. to smoothen out the overall returns for funds of funds. I just think people (especially the media) misrepresent the profit/loss profile into something that consistently stays flat in low...

Difficult? They bet $6bln on long vol/tail setups. Seeing +10 to 20% days happens once or twice every market cycle (5-7 years) years. It's not 'difficult' at all.

@i960 You're assuming, you don't know. You assume because Taleb has a PHD and is on CNBC then surely he 'knows his stuff'. Why so gullible? No that's not "entirely possible", it's actually impossible. You can't establish an overall position that benefits from both long and short volatility, at...

Yes Taleb has a PHD, wrote a book and appeared on CNBC, he really must know what he's doing. Just like the guys at LTCM. Here's another 'great trade' of Taleb's, flashback to 2010: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=azLmks3BmQm4 Anyone who followed his advice is down 50%...

Long volatility funds buy far OTM puts AND calls on a variety of assets: currencies, bonds, equity indexes, commodities (oil, gold). If there are sharp moves in either direction they profit. If there aren't any major moves they lose 1-3% a month. Note that the articles about the fund were pure...

These long volatility funds look nice on big spikey moves, but bleed out slowly over time in conventional market regimes. Maybe they made $1bln on Monday, but how much they they lose the last 5 years? That's what they don't tell you.

How would Siegel's track record be if (hypothetically) he wasn't born in the US but in Japan? He'd tell us the same drivel "historically the market always goes up 8% a year".. until it doesn't.

Siegel is the biggest idiot in the game but he might be "right" on this one -- like any other broken clock.

Investable commodity indexes topped 2007, not 2011/2012. Rogers himself touted buying commodity future index linked ETFs -- investable commodities. And they're in a gigantic bear market since 2007, down a whopping 65% from their peak. Listen to Rogers now, he will STILL tell you it's a...

Rogers is absolutely delusional. Investable commodities have been in a huge bear market since 2008 and Rogers has been bullish throughout the last 7 years! Not even once he has admitted commodities crashed and are in for a long period of pain. Each and every time he was interviewed over the last...

I think you have it backwards. Your question should be "How did you transition from stupid huge risk on a small account to risking reasonably little on a huge account". Traders with big accounts who take huge risks don't have big accounts for very long, just my personal experience.

Just contact their sales departments and ask for quotes.

I am short a few EDEN at IB. Hard to borrow but they located shares after 1-2 days of waiting.

Also consider Greece already did have a staggering $100bln relief on their debt in 2010, when they promised all kinds of reforms. Yet here we are 5 years later with the same inefficient public administration and they're asking for another $100bln debt relief. They will once again make all kinds...

I think you're an tinfoil-hat wearing idiot. No one speculator can take down a currency or country unless there is some fundamental economic flaw to be exploited in the first place. Iceland was crying to the IMF in 2007 with exactly the same tune "Oh these speculators are trying to destroy us...

US legal system is messed up big time . Female teachers get jail time for giving consensual BJs to 17 year old highschool kids -- and Corzine walks free. Go figure.

Interesting situation in some of the Chinese small caps. DATE and CMGE have offers pending but are getting crushed in the china crash. Interesting yields that get bigger by the day but a financial crash in china obviously increases risks of deal financing falling apart.

Speaking of getting lucky, nice bump in PNK today as bid was raised. Lose some, win some.

In general, yes. Deals with buyers who are A+ rated big Fortune 500 companies generate smaller yields than some shady Private Equity company no one has ever heard of. When BRK bought out Lubrizol and Burlington Northern railway the annualized yields were on par with BRK's short term corporate...

People are claiming the US is no different than Greece and they are clueless now as they were then.