EdWatchesBoxing

I am going through those latest tweets from Bloomstran now :)

I love Assness. Whatever that guy talks about... investing, politics, business. He'll give you an honest, straight up, no bullshit answer. You've got to respect that in a man. Yes, and I am enjoying his tweets/discussion on the value factor :) On Cathie Wood, she gets bashed on FinTwit, but I don’t think it is fair. She had a 10+ year career at AllianceBernstein in thematic investing, which was probably the springboard to ARK. Any ARK etf is speculation, IMO, but I think she has worked very hard. However, I think she’s spent too much time marketing and not enough time on risk management, maybe it’s all by design. I don’t really care because I didn’t put any $ to work there. Chamath on the other hand seems to manipulate too much. I really dislike his tweets about buying up the Hamptons, or whatever it is. It’s all BS.

The cloud over Clover Health is enough for me to question anything he markets. This thread is amusing:

I agree with Sanjeev here. I caught a youtube video a while back where he was saying that shorting banks was a good idea since we have ZIRP in effect. Then I hear SoFi is one of his SPAC's... lol Interesting side note. I found out that he was a cross-currency swap trader @ BMO. I think it was his first job out of school.

https://nope-its-lily.medium.com/gamestop-power-to-the-market-players-part-1-d8863f2f8604

Yes, it appears everything available is in the money: https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/GME/options?moneyness=allRows&expiration=2021-01-29-w What prevents a new $70/80/90+ strike price from being offered in a given expiration? https://www.cboe.com/exchange_traded_stock/equity_options_spec/ Should be new strikes on Monday. I imagine the market makers would be driving/requesting this, but I don't really know. https://www.ivolatility.com/options/GME/NYSE/ What a melt up situation! With Implied vol @ their highs, it is an uphill battle for the wsb gang, especially the late comers buy calls next week. At these levels, realized vol should drop which MM's will be making money on. It's going to be a crazy ride. WSB gang will likely buy these new calls regardless of the greeks. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Would also be interesting to know if there's anyone with actual option MM experience on this board.

It always takes me a few re-reads to digest SD's posts, but I agree. I'm a market junkie, so learning more about the options market makes me appreciate what's been happening these days.

If there really is a crash coming, I'm ready to jump into semiconductor stocks post-crash.

FWIW, the fintwit options crowd is talking a lot about a gamma squeeze. In general, I do believe a dealer will take on short gamma risk by writing options to institutional clients. I am guessing a MM could also hedge by buying a higher strike/OTM of the money call. I read on wsb that all call strikes are current ITM. If true, lol. I think DFV saw an opportunity of a lifetime. He said it himself when he talked about the extreme asymmetry of this bet on youtube. Good for him.

Having spent a lot of time in casinos and doing some card counting, The gaming industry depends on people executing these "strategies" for profit. Eventually, I think people will figure out (with their own losses) who has the real edge. The casino will eventually cut off any real edge someone's discovered. I think poker is probably the one exception. Another one might be if you get enough comps. I still play poker for token amounts, as mental exercise and discipline practice. However, sometimes I wished I'd never come across casino gaming.

The Keg is a luxurious enough experience for me. That's fine dining for me. I like to think that I am getting back a little of what I pay for as an FFH shareholder :)

I missed this when it was first posted. Nancy Davis seems to really know her stuff. Interesting to hear that she only uses options to implement her ideas. She mentioned that she is long gamma in the short end. I think this makes a lot of sense. She also mentioned market makers and delta hedging. Is anyone familiar with option market makers? Focusing on SPX, I am guessing that institutions typically write puts and covered calls, making them short vol and short gamma. Are market makers generally long the straddle then (and use futures to delta hedge)? Is this the correct thinking? And if the market maker is short gamma, I am guessing they would want to bring it down to zero ASAP.

I remember when Citi and Bank of America were discussed on the forum a few years ago. I was the small fish following the whales. I still remember jumping from Citi to B of A, then someone on the board mentioned trading up into quality with JPM. I ended up selling B of A to buy JPM.

Like Viking has mentioned, I am watching US treasuries. I imagine at some point the rate increases will likely point to a drop in stocks, and I'll be busy then. Over the past year and a half, I have been studying volatility/VIX and options. I have been reverse engineering Feb 5 (XIV/SVXY drop) and look forward to seeing that type of event return.

http://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/financial_lf.htm Just focusing on VIX futures, I see from report above that buy side (asset mgrs and leveraged funds) are net sellers of vix futures. This lines up with the WSJ article above. Firms that used to buy insurance are now selling. Sounds a bit like reaching for yield in the bond market. Buying OTM index puts would be one bet to take advantage of low implied vol, in the hopes that vol increases. I've been researching this stuff over the last few weeks. My thinking is to either sit on the side lines and wait for vol to increase to go short vol, or place small bets to be long vol.