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I think the confusion is in your last paragraph. It makes it sound like you're investing 60-70% (6-7 units of a 10 unit portfolio) in OTM options. If by that you mean you're counting the options at their full strike value then you're right, no chance of losing 10X. I would mention a couple of...

Except that's the "macro is the same as your personal checkbook" viewpoint. While it's tempting to collapse all the complexities of macro economics to something simple like that we can all easily relate to, it's as nonsensical as the whole picture of atoms circling around a nucleus model is to...

I served 20 years in the military which means, I've lived in 15 states and spent time in literally every one as well as spending time in a couple dozen other countries. I'd be interested to hear your commiserate experience that leads to your observations, seems only fair to provide after your...

Let's talk reality here. Your grandfather, or at least the Normal Rockwell prototypical thing you've got stuck in your head, most probably lived in a sub 1000 square foot house with one bathroom and no garage. He probably had one car that would be lucky to reach 75,000 miles. He couldn't afford...

Got it. Yeah, the whole shorting market is very opaque and I think a big money maker for brokers. If nothing else they make a ton of risk free money lending their margin customer's stocks. I had heard, but can't remember the details, that some smart entrepreneurs set up a marketplace to add some...

I never had IB do that on boxes like this but I suppose it is a risk. The idea was more to do it at other brokers in order to get the best of both worlds, IB's admittedly low margin rates without their horrendous "customer service". I used to do this at OptionsXpress which is now Schwab, can't...

You don't have to answer this, but think about it. How far OTM are the puts you're selling in percentage terms. What is the maximum percentage change in the time period you're selling puts for historically in the stock in question and it's peers? How many times in the past 10 years has the stock...

It's an SPX option spread, there is no lending involved. The broker charges you nothing but the SPX commission which is minimal for this especially if you do a wide spread.

Sure, you can make 1% per week selling OTM puts.....until the steamroller you've been picking up nickels in front of crushes you when the market falls and you lose all you made and whole lot more. It's not a matter of if but when.

And those puritan "good" nations that stayed on the gold standard are all killing it....oh, wait a minute there aren't any such things. But really if you prefer the standards of living of 108 years ago you can join the Amish, anything else is pretty hypocritical.

Sell short against a box a wide SPX spread to fund, you end up with better than IB and can do it with any broker.

That was the FOCUS report you linked to! It's all they publish for that entity, the FORM X-17A-5 Part III. Without having P&L there's really no way to tell what their annual returns were. The change in members equity could be an indicator, but going off that I see that it changed from...

I've thought exactly the same thing. MySpace died for exactly the reasons you listed, it was built on a software framework that couldn't scale as fast as it's user base and the later movers could scale so when MySpace's limitations limitations where revealed they were quickly leapfrogged as...

Not sure what this shows, it doesn't even have a P&L just a balance sheet?

In addition, MasterCard was actually itself owned by the banks that issued MasterCards until it's IPO. I'm guessing a number of them still own their original interest in the company. So the issuers are making money on both legs of the merchant fee in that case.

Yeah, the guys been on my ignore list for a while. It might be a nice feature for forums like this to be able to check a box when you sign up and automatically add everyone who is already on ignore by 10% or more of the forum to your ignore list? That way it would just get quieter and quieter...

Except they did So Peak6 is really a combo PE/Fintech/MM firm. They own Apex, for example, which I clear through and is a great firm, but their revenue doesn't come from their own prop trading. They also have a company the runs the software behind flood insurance, and a bunch of other cats and...

Interesting on the blue collar thing. Is there any tracked statistic that you know of that shows this? I'd think that would be a very useful thing to track closely over the next few months as we try to determine if this is a short term bounce or more long lasting.

All the unemployment benefits are rolling off though. I'm not sure that blue collar employers are significantly inflating wages they pay, although I don't have a blue collar workforce so I don't have any first-hand info on that. I don't doubt that there's some pent up money and pent up demand...

Your link didn't come through? My understanding was that QE1 and QE3 mainly bought mortgage backed securities from banks while QE2 mainly bought treasuries, which is what is happening now as well. I think we're also talking about two different things that are happening now. In the spring of...