The Credit Crisis Financial Stocks Short Journal

PPD had plunged in the last few days(after putting the squeeze of a generation)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/PrePaid-Legal-Announces-2010-prnews-1130817826.html?x=0&.v=1

My non-expert analysis of this tells me that things are getting bad there
their 'New sales associates recruited' stayed flat even though they cut their fees significantly
Insiders sold stock in september. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to add to my short here(I had to cut when the stock squeezed but this could be it for their ability to scam people)
 
Quote from Debaser82:


Oil had many 30% to 50% retracements during its run from 2000 to 2008 and highest profits were there for those who waited.
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Thats the thing, the oil bulls are still in the bull camp even though the price collapsed from 2008. Sometimes you just got to know when the market is too insane and you need to get out. Gold doesn't resemble oil in 2008(at least not yet) but if it did, might want to put a trailing stop in just in case

I do think that the statement from Dudley that he is thinking about the inflation policy of 'making up' with inflation above target later for inflation bellow target right now is quite bullish for gold, way more than some small BOJ program that the gold market loved
 
I'm thinking about putting in QE trade. Buying a Fed future contract in the 6-7 month to expiry range and betting the EFF will go down more than its implied. The most priced to go down is about 4bps, I believe it will go down that much easily given the behavior of the EFF when they shutdown the UST SFP, problem is, the fed futures are so ridiculously overbought I dont want to touch them now, specially given that this trade will need large leverage to make the money worth it. If I'm right the market wont know the new EFF for a long-time as the POMOs pick up and raise excess reverves. So I have some time for this trade
 
Quote from Daal:

Thats the thing, the oil bulls are still in the bull camp even though the price collapsed from 2008. Sometimes you just got to know when the market is too insane and you need to get out. Gold doesn't resemble oil in 2008(at least not yet) but if it did, might want to put a trailing stop in just in case
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I'm a bit wary about using stops.

I own a stock that's up 300% since I bought it but at one point dropped 20% intraday at the lows.

I'd rather try and hedge myself through the correlation between currencies and assets.

Like for instance if you were British and had all your money in the Nikkei in 2008 you would have been flat despite the huge collapse of the Japanese stockmarket because of the equally vicious drop in Sterling.

Ofcourse the relationship between say risk cautiousness and a rising Yen or USD isn't carved in stone so there is an undisputable portion of risk involved as well obviously.

I don't know if it's a plus or a negative being American and exposing yourself directly to USD denominated assets such as oil or gold for instance.

I'm guesing you have the advantage when it rises but you are more vulnurable on the drop which could call for a lesser risk appetite, to some extend, or putting in hedges such as stops indeed.
 
Jan Hatzius says Basel 3 will cut GDP growth: "knocking 1.5 to 2 percent off gross domestic product in the next few years"

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/goldman-sachs-and-the-economy/#more-84073

Now this is an interesting debate because even though the requirements will start only in 2013, the banks might decide to start accumulating capital before that. If Hatzius is correct we are talking very weak M2 growth which means more supportive polices from the Fed or at least keeping the current accommodation in place

I believe he is correct, the basel 3 thing will make crises less likely so overall GDP might growth more in the long-run but in the short run it will growth less. There is a reason its called a boom bust cycle, you cant remove the bust(by raising capital requirements) but not remove the boom. The UR might stay at 8-9% for an eternity
 
Quote from Daal:

Its official, the equity market is stupid
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/ho...ds-tail-risk-allowed-158-annualized-return-bp
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In all seriousness I dont believe there is anything new here. This just confirms what the studies already indicated, there are excess returns to be earned from the stock market in periods of panic and high volatility. I made the case here that the panic in BP stock was likely mispricing the probabilities of the company going into trouble, I shorted HAL puts instead to take advantage of that because I thought there was less risk there

But this is definitely a new strategy I will keep around to add a few percentage points of returns a year(which compounded over 10 years will be worth quite a lot): short puts of quality but slightly overvalued stocks during VIX spikes. You might be wrong once and a while but there are excess returns there
 
Bernanke's FDR moment
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...1732.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

FDR devalued the dollar against gold in 1933 which lead to people to start to spend and invest(get rid of dollars essentially to avoid future devaluations), that bottomed the economy back then. Now Bernanke has a similar option, by stating that they will miss the target down the line they are essentially saying the dollars will be devalued in the future through higher inflation, so there is an incentive to spend right now

I dont believe they would use this option unless things get really ugly but its important to realize that they do have this option and the NY Fed president is even considering it
 
It seems that some economists(particularly with Keynesian backgrounds) seem to believe that animal spirits can turn society into a deflationary mindset(specially if rates are at 0%) and in such scenario monetary policy wouldn't work therefore fiscal stimulus is needed to restart the economy and turn people's psychology

I dont believe that is correct, simply because peoples psychology can be changed. Here is a great example on how the government was effective in ending Brazil Hyperinflation through a psychological trick even though they had little credibility at the time

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010...odcast-how-four-drinking-buddies-saved-brazil
I would also note that 'not printing money' was a plan that had been trying but failed to end hyperinflation

In a Japanese scenario the government could employ all these types of tricks(including promises of inflation above target for a long-time, or just flat out promise to destroy the currency). Many of these measures the BOJ never implemented which makes me confident the long end of the UST market will at some point down the road be the short of the century
 
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