Originally posted 2009-03-24 17:59:49. Republished by Blog Post PromoterGeithner III is intended to create “price discovery”. But when you backstop the “buyer” from any downside while at the same time financing said buyer, then the “value” or price discovered becomes artificially inflated. Perhaps this is precisely why the plan is designed this way. Nonetheless, the [...]
Originally posted 2009-05-13 10:21:46. Republished by Blog Post PromoterImplied dividends of European stocks based off of dividend swaps on the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index, have jumped, indicating growing optimism about equity markets worldwide. Implied dividends were at distressed levels near the end of Q’4 last year. The cause was a scramble by dealers to hedge [...]
Although behavioral targeting has thrived by allowing marketers to offer ads that are customized based on the web surfer’s age, gender, location and online activities, in the immediate future not only will those variables be considered, but also the items the user may have been shopping for recently. For example, imagine you have searched for a specific bottle of wine from a shopping web site in the past couple of weeks, and were now on your favorite news site reading an article about foreign affairs. At the end of your article, you might see an ad from a wine merchant suggesting you take a look at their inventory and pricing. To go one step further in our example, the merchant that is serving you the ad has agreed to pay the advertising network a generous fee if that user clicks through and ends up purchasing a product. So the advertising network will be incentivized to track every single web user going through their network in a way that continually allows them to “guide” users to products that meet their real time interests. The convenience factor lies in that last term, “real time interests”.
LINK to Original Article (Reuters) – Judging by the recent flurry of share buyback announcements, Corporate America is increasingly confident the worst of the economic slump has passed. After two years of belt tightening, stock buybacks are running at their highest level in two years as companies start to look for ways to deploy the [...]
The desk I run is an Institutional Long/Short Equity desk which tries to maintain a “market neutral” book. This doesn’t mean “buy 1000 shares of IBM and 10 puts”. What market neutrality means is that one need not be concerned about the overall direction of the market, as momentum traders are, but rather have long [...]
30-year Treasury Yields are about to spike along with a dollar rally. I feel this is the catalyst to trigger a sustained pullback in equities, which will reflect our rising unemployment rate and all the stimulus plans that are slowly phasing out. Equity Long/Short Market Neutral traders will have an edge in this market over [...]
Gold went over $1000 and sustained a rally to $1020. A dip to test, and re-test $1000 is likely. This magical number will continue to be used as the line at which bulls and bears continue to thrash each other relentlessly like a tug-of-war match in an Ultimate Fighting chained rink. I’m watching the 70.50 [...]
With all of the clutter and insanity due to groups turning into recruiting grounds and advertising forums for esoteric and mindless products, I was compelled to launch my own LinkedIn Group which is being emphatically embraced by the systematic and discretionary proprietary trading universe, to my delight. I know many of you are Prop. Traders, [...]
The US Economy, according to the behavior of key market sectors, is on an absolute tear and within six to nine months, the data is going to be screaming “expansion” at a breakneck pace. Bond market behavior over the past several weeks suggested the same except the talking heads tried to rationalize it as “bond vigilantes” wreaking havoc on the President’s fiscal policies. A monkey could have rationalized better than them.
The largest share redistribution of the country’s financial companies is about to take place right before our very eyes. This is the final crescendo of the Financial Crisis of 2008: Massive share sales of the strongest banks that are standing right now. .. All of a sudden, showing strength for the past several weeks and [...]
Today’s housing numbers were a game changer for me. Sometimes, one’s brain learns to tune certain things out while sitting on the trading desk. At times, this filter becomes too good and blocks out important facts. Generally, the a.d.d. prevalent amongst all of us on the trading floor (as if it’s a prerequisite) keeps us [...]
As reported by Institutional Risk Analytics, the following is a list of the 19 domestic banks taking part in the so-called SCAP stress test. These banks are likely to be under the “too big to fail” category. Thus, if they fail their stress tests, they will be receiving another injection of public funds: Holding Company [...]
