Free Bright Trading Mid Year Workshop

Here is a little trip down memory lane from 2006. Apparently I was giving him shit about that trade then too. LOL.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=63056&perpage=6&pagenumber=59

 

+1

 

Hi Mav, can you expand on what "bullets" means? Haven't heard of that before in the trading context. Are you referring to decimalization? thx

 

bullets was a way to synthetically short a stock on a downtick. it involved a combination of simultaneously buying stock, puts and (i believe) selling calls through a one click process.

 

thanks!

 

I have 2 developers who have done a lot of work to date. They're both willing to do all this for free, and I will likely go with one of them. Website is for information, and I've actually had several who are glad we don't try to wow them with all the cool web technology. However, I think we'll have something new and updated soon.

Don

 

Fortunes were made by "bullet providers"

 

Bullets were "fictitious" transactions that when purchased allowed you to sell stock on a minus tick ahead of a natural short. Say there is bad news in BBY pre-market. The specialist would open the stock on a minus tick which meant all the market on open short orders went into a que. They would not get filled until the specialist let the stock trade on an uptick. The only people who could hit the bid were natural longs. A bullet holder was a de-facto natural long. He could hit the bid all the way down even though he had no long stock. The trader would then stop his position on the natural short waiting to get filled basically giving him a free trade. On "paper" he had a married put which is long stock/long put. So the exchange saw the transaction as him selling his long stock. The reality is no such position ever existed. It was an accounting transaction.

Firms made a killing selling them and prop firms made a killing marking them up to traders and traders made a killing shorting the stocks. They went away around 2002 or 2003.

 

Thanks for the explanation! Must have been great years back then for these groups

 

I had a connection with a fund that provided bullets--- it was easy and nearly risk free money while it lasted-- a real edge for our investors at the time.