Fresh news: "Afternoon Reading: Bear Gets a Bump (at The Wall Street Journal Online)" http://stockshoot.com/content/view/736/
Some guy on Bloomberg who claims it's certainly going to go through, and JPM will end up with BSC's coveted prime brokerage business, but it will likely be bid up to 15 or even 20 before the deal closes as bondholders are climbing in to guarantee a JPM (and really fed reserve) backstop on their debt. Jamie Dimon was purportedly heard yelling expletives and telling advisors he'd rather drive BSC back into bankruptcy according to an article in today's NYT. Fubar. lol.
Agree. The US economy, taxpayer, and Dimon's personal account in hell will all be better off if he refuses to partake in this disgusting piece of socialist corruption, fraud and theft.
Your wager (versus someone making a 100% reasonable, rational, and as it turned out PROFITABLE post) was about a call on BSC. Not about ES or FX. Instead of just disagreeing, you tried to call the guy out. Fair enough, but when you then take a total hosing on the call, you have to fess up and concede you were totally wrong. Someone taking the exact opposite position to you would have made nice money, you lost it. End of story. No excuses, no BS, no "I made X amount on this other position". You would have made X PLUS your BSC loss if you had not sold that straddle, so your other position profit means diddly squat. Surely you know that, and if another ETer had pulled that pathetic diversionary tactic, you would have called them on it too. You did a similar thing on your 1300/1600 March ES no touch short straddle thread. "Bet" a guy, then taunted him in January about how much you were up. Never brag about a position profit until it's banked. 2 weeks later your position hit the barrier and was worth zero - never saw an update about it, let alone an apology to the guy who was 100% correct and who you had unfairly baited, 2 1/2 months before expiry. What is so bad about accepting you made a losing trade. All traders have loads of losing trades, and plenty of bad losing trades. Trying to minimise or deny that does not show skill, talent, or eliteness, it just shows a dangerous ego and refusal to accept losses i.e. the 2 prime indicators of future blow-up tendency. Do you really want to become the next James Stock or Vic Niederhoffer? C'mon - concede the guy was right, congratulate him on his win, and move on. If your loss was so small then why would it be so hard to do that? P.S. why do people only tell you how small their position size was after they take a loss? I've never seen someone say "Hmm I'm cautiously bullish on this one" then follow up with "Damn - stopped out for a $2 loss, but it was a 50,000 lot, ouch!" The losers are always small and the winners are always huge positions.
I stated it would never touch $40 again. Please quote the "win" for which you speak and I will happily congratulate him. You making reference to daddyeaux and the OP, who posted "never say never" to a $40 BSC. I'll be waiting. The OP was schooling me on probabilities with the holier "never say never" when the intent of my statement was diametric to the maths. Thanks, I got it that the deltas were 30/70 on the 40-handle. The probability of a $40 touch wasn't my point. I earned on the position as BSC hit 12.86 and I posted the offset. I was an idiot for selling the 30-handle in light of my convictions. Regardless, the position size was what it was. I make calls all the time and often post size. My point was related to the binary event -- the probability of a bailout at a much lower price. My mistake was choosing the 30-strike. In fact, it was purely accidental; I had meant to sell the $20-strike, it was a fat-finger error. I posted the trade in real-time on FT chat -- a dozen guys from this forum witnessed the mistake on the 10-lot, fat finger and all. Willingness to accept a loss? Moronic comment. The stock closed at $30 and opened at $4. The rationale for small size was simply that; a binary event analogous to an FDA biotech approval. My only fault is that I neglected to post size initially, and I accept any criticism for that. The pissing match with blackjack was related to statistical touch probability and leverage. He disputed the leverage [implied touch prob] and I happened to have a running- position that matched on duration. He didn't realize it, but his odds would have priced the double-barrier at 90/100. The trade in question was offset at ~$30k, but it wasn't my intent to make a market call; it was simply a comment to the OP on a directional barrier exotic, touch-prob and leverage. He was wrong on the maths, end of story. Do you hold every position until rollover? Give me a break. Newsflash -- exotics can be offset. Do you recall your pissing match with Rowshan in which you boast about your win rate?
I never mentioned that I owned the position, so why would I post the offset? My second reply to blackjack was follow-up with the mark to market. Your logic is flawed. I had owned the position for weeks when my initial reply to blackjack was made. I hadn't posted the initial transaction time stamp as it wasn't relevant. The only contentions were the touch probability and a payout in-line with the thread-title. The DNT was wildly profitable for months. I know you never offset anything, you just accumulate futures and spot positions until you take delivery. All options are held until worthless or itm assignment or exercise, is that right? Neither reply to blackjack stated when or at what price I'd traded the open/close. Forget that I ever made the call if you like, as it was not my intent to talk my book, and I never stated that I'd made the trade. Two weeks? You're out of your mind. In any case, I was already out, but again, I'd never mentioned I was in. You're reaching. 1st reply: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1594231&highlight=atticus#post1594231 Mark to market comment: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1741687&highlight=blackjack007#post1741687