Archive for the 'Financial Sector' Category

Pushback from the Market to Geithner III?

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 [...]

Short and Long Plays Popping Up All Over the Place

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 [...]

Global Macro Themes for the Proprietary Trader

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 [...]

Invitation to Join New LinkedIn Group

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, [...]

Capitalist Socialism and the Net Net of It All

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 [...]

Subordinated Debt and the Paradox of Bailout Psychology

Corporate bonds have been on a tear since April; however, the paper of financial firms has outperformed all other categories by a significant margin. This is odd and perhaps suggests the market is either not correctly pricing this paper, or something is artificially preserving their value. During April and May, investment-grade subordinated financial bonds returned [...]

Ten (or more) Trading Ideas for Professional Traders

Game Plan – Market following “yields”. Watch 5 and 10y yields. Technician’s waiting for “right shoulder” will be left behind. Watch for start of retracement to test long-term support and confirm recent bottoms, but maintain bullish view until reversals are in. Campaign – Most “Doji’s” negated. Dow INDU target 8940-9000. 8350 support.  DJINET trg= 90. [...]

SCAP Participants in the Stress Test

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 [...]

A Sober View of Neo-Capitalism

The real action behind the scenes. This is monumental. No, “GENERATIONAL”. No… it’s… it’s … Politics aside, the reality is thus, according to my dogma, the Financial Times: Lawrence Summers, senior economic adviser to Barack Obama, US president, told the Financial Times recently that the Group of 20 countries should agree to boost government demand. [...]

Trading Ideas for Thur/Fri

For Thursday: JPM- Top name. Target size is 3 boats. Work hard for it. Confirmed/Qualified 12 count. Assume all insiders have been massive buyers over prior several weeks at unheard of prices. This is where crowd psychology starts to shift, and the beginning of the momentum shift is always the toughest AND most profitable. FOCUS…FOCUS…FOCUS… [...]

Caught the Turn, Now Lets Eat…

Or should I say “feast”, to better reflect my opinion? Perfect catch of the turn. Having switched from net short to net long mid day and scored doubles on both sides is excellent for a typically uneventful Wed. Nevertheless, should have crushed it beyond what was achieved. Seems like overly cautious following prior 8 weeks [...]

Trading Ideas Inauguration Week…

Long-term study of S&P 500 cash index shows 18m RSI below30 for first time since 2003 bottom. Modify long basket: re-weight sectors based on model runs on Sunday!!! ERX, CRM, CAT & CME, ICE - swing pivot UYG- Friday 8 count. Volume rising. Looking for climax low… URE- 2nd volume spike around major low. Final bottom [...]