Quote from Daal:
I dont know why you guys are trying to rip OP.
The MER deal shows that this trade was not off the mark.
Its easy to say, now that leh was found not to be attractive for a buyer that the whole trade was a disaster.
But on friday we had heard for months the Neuberger and asset management division hype and their good fixed income desks, it was not even close to unlikely event that LEH would get bought out.
MER was within days of the same fate and yet they were purchased at a premium. CDS on LEH were at 700 bps(not even close to junk), market thought they were too big to fail, OP was wrong but so was almost the entire financial world
There is a world of difference between MER and LEH. If you recall I put on a long MER short GS (yeah wish it had been LEH!) trade a couple of weeks ago and the reason was because of the substatial insider buying in MER. This BAC aquisition didn't happen overnight, these guys were betting on a sure thing when they made those buys.
As far as the OP goes, such arrogance has rarely been rewarded with anything other than a smackdown, though I am sorry that you were caught up in the trade.