Welcome to Pakistan!

Live via blackberry from the parking lot that is the west side highway.

So, kiddies, the headline says it all.  We're literally 2 steps away from instituting the "no uptick" rule with the gobment instituting a bullsh!t temporary moratorium on short selling (whoops put volume through the roof!) via WSJ.so, um, yea artificial price floors r00l, right? 10 (or 30) days from now when the 800-stock ban gets lifted all the underlying fundamentals are gonna be all hunky-dory, right? No, they won't. This is bullsh!t, plain and simple, and while I don't like it one bit (reg FD: closed my big short retail position yesterday prior to the bounce), the powers that be seem to think that scapegoating The Shorts (see my prev post) will save stocks from the Panic. Ignore the fact that regular selling has a massive impact, but 'f it, asset prices MUST go up!

Whatever, I'm (finally) @ work, and sooo over this BS.

Comments

[StupidEquityGuy]

I covered all of my shorts earlier this week... wish I had sold my puts... This has been an adventure is stupidity this week. I am still technically green for the week, but its been a crazy ride...

[The Particle]

Undermining the faith in free markets with unwanted government intervention. After this asinine rule is lifted we will be back on square one.

[Anal_yst]

@ SEG

Glad to hear you haven't been decimated by this nonsense, trading gets exponentially harder when the rules of the game are changing, its a big wtf to the powers that be, grrr!

@ Particle

The problem is that retail investors (and likely the majority of institutional as well) are masssively over-allocated long in their portfolios. Even though the idea of hedging has been around forever, mandates and thick-headedness keep retards like Chris Ailman (see previous post) in business.

Its cliche but entirely true: a fool and his money were lucky enough to get together in the first place.

[StupidEquityGuy]

Sir Anal,

I was pissed on Monday when the Bull got owned by B of A at some silly markup. I was deep into puts and short shares... I spent Monday unwinding that position and then decided to just cover all of my shorts because who knew what was going to happen.

I kicked myself hard on Wednesday when I could have covered at better prices, but I was feeling a hell of a lot better by Friday...

Its good to be lucky sometimes...

I spent most of Thursday and Friday unwinding my long positions and raising cash. This market appears ready to do a Triple Lindy and end it with a nice giant belly flop... I am still green MTD and YTD, so its time to step aside and let the the sucker do what it wants to.

Best,

~SEG

[Anal_yst]

@ SEG

Glad to hear you're still alive and well (and in the black)! As you mentioned in times where the rules are changing cash may very well be the best place to be; after closing out my short retail positions (immediately prior to the short ban thankfully) I've moved everything to cash for now.

In times like these fundamentals or even technicals are almost irrelevant - if you're still trading you're more exposed to regulatory uncertainty and panic selling/buying.

I'm not sure about you, but thats the kind of risk - and uncertainty - that I'm not very excited about being exposed to.

[StupidEquityGuy]

Sir Anal,

I just realized that I said something and left something out... I meant to say I had spent Thursday and Friday unwinding some of my longs. I am not flat flat.

I am at historic levels of cash for my approach, but I am still exposed with equity, calls and puts. Oh hell throw in some calls on the crack spread via HO and RBob futures and we are getting closer to my exposure... oh and metals... I have a few pounds in the market here and there... lol...

Seriously... I am at historic levels of cash, but I am a macro global type... I went flat most of my currency bets last week also... Its almost time to reapply some...

Get this, X Broker Dealer did a whoops and my PB trading desk has me short CL in size over the weekend... last I heard a senior partner was being contacted to break the trade... I wont know until we open US Equity trading the status of the trade... I am naked calls on USO... when I only asked to go flat... They somehow doubled the trade via a fail to update issue.

I didn't find out until end of day Friday when they sent a batch update of their system and shazzam I am short when I was trying to lower risk in the portfolio...

It was green a couple of thousand dollars in after hours as they tried to break it, so maybe X will take the profit and I wont have the position at open... either that or I am buying a small tanker in the spot market... lol

So, how is your weekend?

~SEG