Sell puts!

We're selling Kyle's ass; loss pending, of course ....

Gotta lock in profits if you're a trader

That ~$10k profit I was sitting on week before last, has bombed rapidly to a ~$2k profit. Loss of ~8k in a week and a half.  Tomorrow is another terrible day. Futures are already deep red. Asian markets are going down like a gutter whore. Time to uninstall my iPad, iPod touch and Blackberry stock apps and time to lay off the news and finance sites. I'll have so much free time!

Short?

Wow ....
It's still $2k up ...

Good luck ...

What causes such volatile fluctuations? I mean short of a major war or natural disaster what causes prices to rise and fall so sharply.

I have a theory and that theory is that prices are manipulated by the people who operate the market.
Not a single dime was lost during the great depression,  they were all simply transfered from the many to the few.
And that "depression" WAS manufactured btw.

50,000 laws later, does it really seem like the scene is more honest now?

This is about as close to believing in a conspiracy theory as I get. The entire system is designed to keep the rich rich.

everybody knows that the dice are loaded
everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
everybody knows that the war is over
everybody knows the good guys lost
everybody knows the fight was fixed
the poor stay poor, the rich get rich
that's how it goes
and everybody knows

Of course the winners write the rules. It's the same as any other society on the planet. The issue I see with Kyles style is he's only playing to win a little and is probably more interested in not losing - sharks love that

I've seen arguments that the origin of capitalism was basically due to the aristocracy becoming irrelevant and needing to maintain their footing against the rising merchant and craftsman classes.

I personally place more stock in those sort of ideas as opposed to the notion generally bandied about now that capitalism is some sort of inevitable progression of human nature and technology.

But I guess that's part of the nature of building a myth.  You have an origin story.  You have various heroes like Henry Ford or Andrew Carnegie.  You have the villains like the unions or the big bad foreign evils like Mao or Lenin.  All of it has a very tenuous relationship to any objective notion of truth, but it's a story that the dominant culture teaches its kids and most members believe to some extent.

Simple solution; decommission some of the "national parks" that make up Alaska,
drill for oil there, lower foreign dependency on foreign oil, lower all fuel costs,
which lowers ALL costs, from food and good delivery, to utilities, and, in the meantime,
work on finding alternate power sources, and life will be bearable for the masses yet again ...

... oh, yeah; it affects the rich; sorry I made such a suggestion!

No it doesn't - who do you think will own that business?

Hmmmm ....

There's another article in Rolling Stone this month that's sort of related - about the failure of financial reforms.  They make mention of the fact that the way wall street runs these shadow markets basically adds a tax to everything anyone buys anywhere - with the price of gas, for instance, being substantially higher because of the speculation and maneuvering in the financial markets, rather than because of actual supply/demand issues.

After all we went through over the last 5 years, the bailouts, the reforms, the promises, JPMorgan is STILL dicking around and is posting a FOUR BILLION DOLLAR LOSS.

Let 'em burn.

And let the bread lines foment the revolution.

There was a clear path forward to deal with the too-big-to-fail banks.  Congress and the president dodged it in drafting the legislation, then have proceeded to get legislation that was already inadequate.  None of this should come as any surprise.

And now banks have their eyes on peoples' 401k savings. 

I'm sure even Marxists can agree that capitalism was a profoundly ingenious way for western civilization to take capital from feudal lords, aristocrats, and tyrants. Although within the past century that system has given innovators a lump of cash reserves that would put those antiquated dynasties to shame. The system that once worked to take the riches of the world and distribute them amongst the able-bodied and ambitious has been usurped by a few of the super-rich that no longer innovate but trivially displace the worlds money into their hands.

Their means of distributing the wealth of the world has left democratically-led governments with no resolvable option. Threaten to tax their billions and they uproot and flee to another country. Ask them for fair employment, benefits, and wages and they lock their doors. We have, in an antithesis to the Hegelian model, backpedaled historically and instead have wound up with another band of rulers, draining resources, crippling the economy, brainwashing the poor, and vilifying any opposition to the established norms.

Well I'm in the process of launching a trading fund that's going to add a tax on top of stuff. I like to think I'm only hurting the banks however.

The problem with these arguments is they have no weight in the real world because people who understand how to leverage money and influence always win. The only thing that has changed in the last 500 years is the gradulal shift from leveraging influence towards money.

You want to change things? Create a viable system for people to opt out. Like the cheap medical clinics that are opening. It's hard because the system now is the easiest current way of doing things - the status quo.

I'm primarily intellectually curious and not concerned with system reforms.  If governments are incapable of enacting sensible reforms when there's both a popular mandate and a clear impetus to do so, then there's not much reason to hope to change the present course.  The entrenched interests will maintain the status quo until there's a major social upheaval.   

I am a fan of implementing local currencies, local food production, community health initiatives,  etc. - the sorts of things that can contribute to making a community resilient, in spite of the economy at-large.

Hey Kyle, ya might want to get in on this as an investment.

http://www.juliensauctions.com/

I wish I knew more about collectibles. Aside from my signed first edition books I've collected over the past couple of years I haven't looked into collectibles or auctions much. Plus, I think I would just hold on to things forever because they are cool and couldn't really get into it as an investment opportunity. You pay for exclusivity, but if it's an amazing piece you're probably not going to want to get rid of it. I'd get too attached.

I just looked into my brokerage account for the first time in a bit over a week and not surprising, I'm now in the red overall. -$2200. That's an incredible drop in 3 weeks time. I was sitting at +$10,000 3 weeks ago and have lost $12k since then. The market has been horrific. Last week was the worst of the year, and only the week before that it was the worst of the year.

My stomach is hardened steel. I went through the 2008/2009 crash without making any stupid moves, and actually made two of the smartest moves. Scooping up Apple shares at $92/share and continuing to invest in my 401K while everybody around me stopped contributing. I gained back from my losses rapidly. It's going to happen again. I only wish I didn't have all my funds locked into stocks already because Ian, you are right. Now is a time to buy.

Last 3 weeks:






Last 5 years, including the crash where I lost 75% of my 401K and was down 40% on my stocks.

I wish I knew more about collectibles. Aside from my signed first edition books I've collected over the past couple of years I haven't looked into collectibles or auctions much. Plus, I think I would just hold on to things forever because they are cool and couldn't really get into it as an investment opportunity. You pay for exclusivity, but if it's an amazing piece you're probably not going to want to get rid of it. I'd get too attached.

I just looked into my brokerage account for the first time in a bit over a week and not surprising, I'm now in the red overall. -$2200. That's an incredible drop in 3 weeks time. I was sitting at +$10,000 3 weeks ago and have lost $12k since then. The market has been horrific. Last week was the worst of the year, and only the week before that it was the worst of the year.

My stomach is hardened steel. I went through the 2008/2009 crash without making any stupid moves, and actually made two of the smartest moves. Scooping up Apple shares at $92/share and continuing to invest in my 401K while everybody around me stopped contributing. I gained back from my losses rapidly. It's going to happen again. I only wish I didn't have all my funds locked into stocks already because Ian, you are right. Now is a time to buy.

So, baggie, assuming that the sanctions are completely lifted in Myanmar. Would it be a smart move to buy a shitload of kyat? According to this graph it has depreciated significantly within the past month: http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/USD/MMK/T. I'm betting that when gas and minerals are excavated, then the value of the kyat will double or triple its value.

Now, next question is: How the hell do I get kyat?

I feel like I should make some dialek-related pun here, but I can't be bothered.

Inept, a market I am definitely not versed in is Forex trading, but you can open up an account at forex.com and play around with $50k in funny money to try and figure out currency trading. I'm sure Kyat is available there. Just do your own due diligence before throwing money into something.

Very recent articles:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-myanmar-economy-idUSBRE84H0E120120518
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/usa-myanmar-idUSL4E8GI89L20120518

It sounds like the government of Myanmar is going to try and fight the appreciation of the kyat.

It's one thing to sit tight and hold your losses but why not buy some put options at the start of the drop if you think it's going to be really bad? If it plunges you break even overall and have the payouts there to buy new stocks at cheap prices, if it doesn't then all it costs are your premiums. You were sure it was going to get rough and in response stopped looking at your account for a few weeks? Forget what I said about adding a zero to your trades mate.

I had no money left in cash, and only a bit left in margin (already riding $40k on margin) so there's not much I can do; I'm pretty much all locked up.

Sounds like constipation, too bad you can't take a pill for that.

I'm primarily intellectually curious and not concerned with system reforms.  If governments are incapable of enacting sensible reforms when there's both a popular mandate and a clear impetus to do so, then there's not much reason to hope to change the present course.  The entrenched interests will maintain the status quo until there's a major social upheaval.   

I am a fan of implementing local currencies, local food production, community health initiatives,  etc. - the sorts of things that can contribute to making a community resilient, in spite of the economy at-large.

I understand that in certan parts of Detroit, the gangsta's have moved out, a bunch of hippies have moved in and are doing just that. Just rocked up one day, found the place deserted , started planting food and buildng small self sufficient communities.

I had no money left in cash, and only a bit left in margin (already riding $40k on margin) so there's not much I can do; I'm pretty much all locked up.

If you're trading on leverage you must ALWAYS leave some in cash for just this scenario OR sell early. Wow.