Looking forward to the journal, Daal. I often find myself conducting similar macro-analysis and placing bets based on that research.
With Fed futures I only pay my taxes in my home country since foreign citizens and corporations are exempt from US capital gain taxes as a long they file a W8-form every 3 years. With NLY, the money is subject to all the salaries, bonuses, compensations of that company THEN I have to pay withholding taxes of the dividend income since there is no treaty between my country and the US and then the money gets taxed in my home country again. But even if there was a tax treaty I dont want to pay a middle man for something I can do myself Thus I believe there is a better return per $1 of risk in the Fed futures
Bernanke said he was worried about the non-extension of the debt limit because the Treasury has a limited amount of cash to make payments of principal and interest in the outstanding debt and thus could be forced to default. It seems that he is overstating that case just to get congress to not play around with this. The Fed would bail out the UST for sure if they needed money. They would call this situation unusual and exigent and make a loan to some LLC which then would lend to Geithner or something like that(They might not have the authority to buy USTs in the primary market)
It's more probable that all major currencies (except NZD) are right on the verge of a very strong long term move against the dollar and if my analysis is correct I reckon this should play out by end of next week. I could be wrong though but I would be interested in knowing your reasons for shorting the Euro.
Buffett on CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008247&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008248&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008249&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008250&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008255&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008216&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008253&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008218&play=1
Its the same Warren Buffet who lost close to $1 billion on the Forex market in 2005 because he bet the dollar would drop. His investement style and holding periods no matter how well they work is just suitable for most. He is the ultimate macro trader and has enough dole back up his views unfortunately for most holding against a strong trend for even a week or 2 leads to poor house.