Ert, I generally agree and sympathize with all your points except one. In the case of Princess Di, you are way off on the point about the bodyguard. For it is obvious that the only reason he walked away was because.........he was alien.
ER mentioned the vix. I was trying to scalp for a year and a half, but to know avail. Lately Ive been using the VIX as a contrarian indicator to measure excessive complacency or fear. Works like a charm.
Note amongst all these posts regarding the (well-placed) fear of nuclear attacks and Ebola outbreaks, and the juvenile nonsense shrugging them off as inconsequential or good trading opportunities, no one suggested a way to PREVENT these horrible things from happening. Do all of you really believe that it is inevitable, that nothing can be done besides wait for those animals to sneak far enough in to murder more people?
i don't think it is juvenile to think about the best way to take advantage of a catastrophe to make more money trading. Many people on this board trade for a living and support families that way. A catastrophe will be horrible for many people, why make it more horrible by not making enough money to support your family. Personally, I have adjusted my style since Sept 11. WIth a large chunk of my portfolio I play a market-neutral approach. I identify beaten down preferred stocks that play huge dividends. I go long those securities and short the common to lock in the yield while giving myself a little upside if the preferred outpaces the common (which it should if the stock was beaten down enough). For instnace, I am short AES and long AES preferred C which pays a 17.5% dividend. I also invest in beaten down defense related stocks. For instance, INVN has been unfairly beaten down to a P/E of about 4 (if you back out the cash) in recent weeks. I backed up the truck and now with all these worries about new terrorist attacks the stock is starting to rebound nicely. I do a check before I get into any stock, short-term or long-term: a. how did they perform on Sep 17 and I compare that with where they were on Oct. 1 b. has to have enterprise value / cash flow of less than 10 or dividend greater than 5%. These stocks did better in the days and months after Sep 11 than any other category. c. has to be 40-50% off of its 52 wk highs. Less chance of major hit if it satisfies "a" and "b" above and has also been beaten down to a bottom. I tend to agree that major catastrophe is happening. Since we don't know when its going to be and the market has been doing a bottoming process I am now mostly long and/or neutral. That said, I firmly believe in preparing for the worst, which, of course, is a nuclear attack in the US.
Sure, attacks are inevitable, inorder to take care of the problem it takes a lot of soul searching. The only thing that can be done is agains popular opinon, against the Liberal PC code and all the touch feely people in this country. We nuke them....plain and simple. If they hit us again, like the vice president is warning, harder than 911. We nuke the fucking basterds......and we do it until they give up, just like japan. Study your history people, Japan had more than half their population on serious drugs, meth.....suicide bombers flying into ships, they were not going to give up. It took two nukes to wake them up.... So before the thought police take this post off,,,,,that is the solution......however, i have no faith in the politicans and its only a matter of time. It will take them to hit us first, to destroy more of us in a "dirty Bomb" before the rest of us wake up. When it hits the pocket books of americans, then they will bitch...right now the sheep are still spending and still feeling safe.... its really scary and sad, but i live my life in the big city the same as i did before 9/11....however, i far more aware of what the future holds and will not be shocked this time, i will be prepared.
It's going to be especially hard on minorities. I'm going to learn how to use a gun. Just to protect myself from my more "Patriotic" american neighbors. A nuclear attack may hurt but this country will recover. It's the political atmosphere I'm worried about. Will we be put in camps like the Japanese? Maybe it's time to move to Canada.
If we relied on an alternative energy source, we wouldn't have to be in the middle east or support Israel (dumbest decision in American foreign policy).
TRADING!!!!!!!! TRADING!!!!!!!! TRADING!!!!!!!!!! The same few people always take these threads off topic.