no..... not sarcastic. since we're not in person it's hard to convey. Just curious since you obviously are controlling opm, wondered if you found more success being short over long in recent times...(prior to this last run) ?! As far as hedge funds you won't get me on their (your) side. I think they need to be regulated and could really mess things up in the markets more than any other force. JMHO. But my view is that the market will take care of many of them, and hopefully they will fold up shop. Can't see how they'll outperform better than mutual fund managers have done even with the ability to be short. As usual some will always wind up on the far end of the bell curve. regards, ICe p.s. JFYI semi book-to-bill out on thursday.
What sort of regulations would you impose on hedge-funds, be they long/short, event driven, global macro, or bond arbitrage? What is so big and bad about hedge-funds? What kind of "damage"do you believe they can do to the markets? Could you be more specific?
Are you kidding me? Mutual fund managers have an incredible record for underperforming the market in the long run. peace axeman
I'm really a long sided trader. I almost never short unless I have a really strong hunch. For that matter, I've been klobbered for the last year on the short side, though I've made a good chunk of that back in the past 2 weeks. For that matter, about a month ago, I stopped having any profitable trades to the long side. I think that was the main signal that we were about to reverse. Usually my p/l is a very good indicator of what the market is doing. After a year of loosing pretty badly on the short side, I have a few consecutive weeks where every short was profitable even though the market was making new highs. I don't think hedge funds are bad for the market. I think that mutual funds are much worse b/c mutual funds are OPM. Most hedgies I know have most or all of their own capital invested in their funds. It makes them much more cautious. Historically, hedges have outperformed mutuals, but there are idiots in both arenas. The other problem with mutuals are that most investors are not very sophisticated. I know lots of people who invest their money in mutuals and don't know what they own at all. Those people shouldn't be buying anything but CD's. Most hedge fund investors at least know enough about the market to be able to pick out someone they feel comfortable with after a few hour conversation.
Just FYI: I have hardly covered anything. i booked my March puts at expy last week and have done nothing else. I am returning from vacation today and things look much weaker than where I left them. I'm still looking to short some near term puts against my longer term ones if this thing gets pretty whooshy, but i don't want to put the puts on unless we drop another 10% or so from here. I also used some weakness to add a bit more to my silver stocks (WTZ,PAAS,SIL,SSRI) have not followed the physical in a few weeks. I think we're due for a round of catch up.
Just saw your earlier replies... will PM you with any comments. Also, I just picked up some SOX calls... and was looking to spread against them... the question is.. debit or credit. We don't usually ask others for "opinions" (and anything another trader says is just an educated opinion), but yours' would be that semis havenot already had most of their downside/correction/retracement... in this wave... and thus it is still a better play to stay short, and trade around such positions??! Thanks for any comments. regards, IcE