The 'wealth' that Brazil created only happened due commodities/China and good global conditions. Now that the cycle turned, the wealth has been vaporized and the citizens are stuck with the bills for the social safety nets, without the wealth to back it up
IVV (SPY) and the 10year trades are working well. I took a bit of IVV (I'm probably down to 3/5 of the original position) but I'm still holding most of everything hoping for a flush in October. I have to be patient here. Stick with the original plan
Random thoughts on the Valeant outrage. How come most people believe the price system is the best way to balance supply and demand (and hence, no one would support the adoption of the Soviet system of government determined prices) but somehow that does not apply to drugs? I would be happy to see some empirical model that proves that in ineslastic supply and demand curves you can abuse the price system by jacking up the price in the short-term, banking a bunch and then bringing prices down (and evidence that this is sustainable on the long-term in a sector). With that there would be no doubt this practice should be outlawed. But without such proof, what Valeant is doing is balacing supply and demand which is a good thing even though it looks horrible on the surface. If the cure to high oil prices is even higher oil prices, why wouldn't the cure for high drug prices be even higher drug prices? This would create the incentive for new drugs to come out
Another random thought, that is completely unrelated but it occurred to me last week. Most governments in the world cap the maximum benefit a senior can get under a retirement benefit system. I would assume that such cap is based on the high end of what a resonable living cost can be plus an extra for safety. This is all well and good but how come such common sense is not applied to child support? It looks like in most situations there is virtually no limit on how much someone can ask for child support. It all depends on the income of, usually, the husband. If its a wealthy man, the bill can add up to dozens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars a month. We are effectively saying that a senior has a cap on how much he needs to live but a newborn(or infant) has not. I would image the living cost of a senior is much higher than a child. Mostly due healthcare. To use a technical term, this is nuts
I put a GTC order for covers on IVV. The price is set at middle of the wick of the Flash crash of August. I will do that in other ETFs as well (not for covers but to be net long). I think it makes a lot of sense having those orders out going into October with stock markets weak. If there is a flash crash in ETFs, thats a situation I will not be shy about betting huge. I will even go all-in (100% of NAV of my accounts). I might not go above 100% due the risk that the ETFs will crash even lower, my broker will liquidate me and there will be no exchange bust on that trades. Its a tiny risk but I rather take the insurance against that
that's the strat I've been doing...the question is what products with good leverage and bad fundamentals.
I locked in a bit more at $187 SPY. Still got 2/5. Its getting closer to the $185 target but I still want some in case there is a flash crash or a standard crash. But its getting though to keep holding. The gains add up and its hard not to lock them up
The good thing about locking up gains is that if this thing bounces and I don't believe the rally. I can re-short higher. The way things are playing out it looks like people are anticipating the October weakness and the market might even rally when it finally arrives