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Believe me I know all about gold's volatility. I got out after the mid 2000s because I couldn't get a handle on it anymore. It was moving in line with the mkt, which isn't normal behavior, and too many people were in it. But now that it was down last year and shook out enough people, and has...

I started out thinking it'd be down this year, now I'm not so sure. There's a definite Chinese slowdown, and that's hurting all kinds of small, commodity dependent countries. It's part of what's causing this hiccup with the EM markets now. So, if things are slowing down, and the Chinese CB has...

...and the futures are flying off Turkey's decision to shoot rates up. They coulda done it before, instead of waiting til I switched over to SDS...

Good day. Was actually long the mkt via SSO today, but closed that out and bought SDS for tomorrow. Vol should come in nicely once the Fed decision is out, but if not it will be because of a big down move in the mkt, so better to have something in case of that. It'll cut in to profits, but...

Bah humbug. Was OK til the very end. Vol will probably stay up until the Fed has its say on Wed.

Simple theory: inflation will always be perceived as higher than the stats for two reasons: 1 - There's stuff that always goes up regardless, like medical bills, real estate taxes, rent. 2 - Inflation is worst at the two ends where it hurts most: when you're first starting out - college...

Brick & mortar problem, especially for the perennially helpless, like JCP and SHLD (Sears & K-Mart). Others are starting to struggle: BBBY, BBY, TGT, and even WMT. Outside of Black Friday, for the past couple of years, they have major trouble getting people to visit their stores. Online is...

Eh, whatevs. Biggest risk to NBG is that idiot Erdogan, who is single-handedly destroying Turkey and therefore endangering any value they might get out of a sale of Finansbank. We'll see how it works out. At this point it's too small for anything but entertainment value anyway.

Odd question. It's a bank, which means it's leveraged, by definition. So it could move in either direction fast. Right now, down is it; my basis was 5.69, it's now at 4.90. It's there so if it shows signs of life I'll do something, but right now, nothing. As the joke goes, massive support at...

C'est la guerre. Could have been far far worse, but on good days I reduce my VAR and increase my hedges, so that bad days like this don't bury me. Barely traded today, except to judiciously reduce where and when needed. Bought 100 GDX on spec, as looking at the charts it seems that, for now...

Hmm. So, I bought a hundred NBG in Dec, having seen that it was actually upgraded by Moody's. It's an option, or maybe a lottery ticket. Seeing red on that tiny investment now. Should I scale in in your opinion?

Wild day, wound up doing not badly, all things considered. Good thing I know collars and spreads and butterflies, or I might have run my car into a tree deliberately around 2 o'clock or so.

Almost perfect. I even managed to guess the correct direction of the VIX SOQ, which started my day out on the right note.

Just checked the Kitco Base Metals site, looked at the charts for the non-ferrous metals. All of them look like they're putting in a bottom, building a nice long base. Not quite time yet, but looks like it will be soon, for some action to resume here. Read a story in the Financial Times a week...

Frustrating day. Not a good trade in the whole day. EOD things sorta began balancing out, but I should have done much better.

This is what you're missing: Stores Confront New World of Reduced Shopper Traffic E-Commerce Not Only Siphons Off Sales, but Changes Shopping Habits What investors in Amazon understand is that it dominates online shopping, and online shopping is killing brick and mortar. I got into...

Thanks for the good wishes, and just in case you misread, I said "Green is good" not greed, as in, I'll be happy to be >0 in my VIX stuff this year (I trade other stuff too of course). Obviously at this early stage I don't think I'm over the learning curve. Anyway, I liked seeing that P&L...

Eh, not enough for them to notice. Like buying a penny stock or a DOTM option: lottery ticket. If it pays off, wonderful, if not, no one cares. As for calling a top, oh man. Mug's game. This time reminds me of EOY 1996, when Greenspan coined "irrational exuberance". He was right, for sure...

Yeah yeah yeah. Kumquat. It's alright. I'd be hugely surprised (delighted of course too) if I did better than you, but I'm not silly enough to think that's gonna happen. Green is good. This will be my first full year doing this w/the VIX, so I'll be happy with that.

Mildly positive day. VIX curve sharpened again but I shorted the market - still had my SDS position - and some other stuff worked out, so net green. Futures curve has gotten zany far as I'm concerned, but I have a feeling sellindexvol66 would disagree. Certainly his P/L does. In other news, TOS...