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Yes on the possibility for a low beta stock with higher volatility than the market. Pretty much anything related to gold seems to display that property, in my observations, i.e. higher idiosyncratic risk than systemic risk. CAPM uses standard deviation, I think it's called Security Market Line...

You know I put that in the back of my mind as something to look into a year or so ago and forgot about it, thanks for bringing it up.

I only mention it because that's a unique risk to ETNs that you wouldn't run into with an ETF. I don't think any ETFs are allowed to halt creation and redemption, although in a drop the size of which has never happened in history I guess all bets are off.

You might take a look at cash settled options, they avoid the scenario you're worried about. Unfortunately limited to just a few indexes for now though.

The DB products you refer to are ETNs, not ETFs, right?

There are two sides to supply and demand. Both can move.

Aren't all stocks held in street name pretty much everywhere unless you pay extra to register them in your name?

When the country you love and truly believe in is in the middle of a confidence crisis that could result in a financial meltdown that would result in a lasting depression and a huge amount of misery for millions, and you are one of the few people who could do something to stop it, is that just a...

Or he grew and matured and realized that his personal wealth wasn't all important anymore and optimizing his tail risk avoidance wasn't the most important thing going on in his life. You can change your strategy based on a change in your outlook in life and you weren't by definition "wrong"...

That would actually be pretty interesting from an academic perspective if it really was that positively correlated to the S&P 500. I think it's just an artifact though, because another similar company shows an almost exactly opposite beta. More interesting in it's market cap, seriously, $1.2B...

On thing to keep in mind is that low beta isn't the same thing as low volatility. Beta is essentially correlation to the broader market, a .5 beta stock would be expected to move .5% for every 1% move in the S&P 500, for example. Note that BP actually has a beta just over 1, so it's not really...

I stand corrected on Russia. No data on how big it was, but I'm guessing it's equivalent to the Zimbabwe stock exchange vs the U.S. now. In other words, of absolutely no consequence in global finance. Puts, diversification, anything else isn't going to help you much in global nuclear war, or...

Russia had a stock market in 1917? Cuba had one in the 1960s? North Korea ever had a stock market? I don't think so! If there's a worldwide nuclear war your puts are going to be worthless no matter how much they're in the money. You're overthinking this.

You are all missing the fact that this is a guy who lives in a 70s subdivision house in Omaha, drives an relatively old car with lots of miles on it, and generally lives pretty fugaly. He doesn't need $100M for his day to day, and he's well regarded enough that he could easily land on his feet...

It's a good thing no one ever lost a job and unemployment didn't exist before globalization. That whole Great Depression thing was staged just like the moon landings, wasn't it.

Keep in mind that SIPC is only up to $500K and only $250K for cash, and commodities and currency aren't covered.

Not quite. That would be saying the amount of flour you could buy for an ounce of gold was the same in 2000 BC as in 1800 AD. Or an hour of labor. Or a computer that allows you to communicate with nearly anyone in the world almost instantaneously......

Actually as a business owner it works the opposite for me. If I don't reinvest in my business, that extra money is a profit subject to tax. The higher that tax, the more I'm incentivized to reinvest my profits. The lower it is the more incentivized I am to take the money and stash it in savings...

Bear Stearns had surplus capital of over $60B at the beginning of 2007. PFGBest supposedly had $500 million in assets the day before it had a $200M shortfall in customer funds. There's an idiosyncratic risk to every company, if you can mitigate it by doing something as simple as buying short...

Actually I have an EE undergrad and run a software company, I came into finance much later and had an experience similar to yours. It's a bit like working with your kids, it's hard when you've experienced something and see how useful it can be but they refuse to engage out of what often seems...