I'm in the same camp. Quite concerned that the Greek exit meme might get out of hand and lead to a 2008 style crash. Too scared to buy more risk assets but also too scared to take off my hedges
What is specially concerning about this round of risk aversion is the trifecta of EU meltdowns, US recession fears and China hard landing fears all happening at the same time
Have to point out that the pre May 06 election polls were completely wrong http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_04/05/2012_440622
Opinion polls are famously inaccurate in closely run or controversial elections. UK 1992 is a classic example, so is the Nixon re-election. People lie to pollsters, especially when the choice is between 2 or more unpalatable candidates or parties. The 'hold your nose' factor means that people will often vote for someone they don't like, and then not admit it.
This could be correct. After the election all of the sudden became more 'okay' to admit in public they were voting for a communist and so Syriza rose in the polls The risk to this outlook though is an coalition between the bailout parties. From a game theory perspective its what they have to do even if they hate each other
My brother is asking me if I will buy FB shares. He never asks me anything about finance. People are going insane
Here's a blueprint for the JPM XLF trade. WMT spread widened against SPY and then came back when people realized that long-term earnings are not likely to be affected by the investigations http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp...mpto=NYSEARCA:SPY&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:WMT&ntsp=0 Some analyts downgraded JPM simply because they wanted more 'clarity' and though the shares wouldn't go up until they got it. The guy from FBR likes the stock but downgraded simply because he thought people would sell the stock even though he doesn't think it will affect future earnings. In a VIX spike I might put on the spread trade
I endup making a nice return in my currency hedge basket due how badly the Brazilian Real has performed relative to other currencies and gold. But now I'm locking in the profit by buying lots of BZF plus overhedging in the AUD, NZD, CAD. Still keeping the gold, I suspect its going to do better than the Real over the next years