Favorite team:Arkansas 
Location:Conway, Arkansas
Biography:Lived in Louisiana ages 0-10 then moved to Arkansas and have lived here ever since.
Interests:football. whiskey. loose women. (in that order)
Occupation:college instructor
Number of Posts:785
Registered on:9/8/2008
Online Status: 

Recent Posts

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So if I want to make a public offering, the only people I can do it through now are Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs? Or are there other minor firms?




If you were a bank....

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/22/08 at 7:38 am
what would you require to make a home loan now?

In terms of down payment, income, etc.

I know my Credit Union requires a 20% down payment - and they had that requirement before this mess began, too.
Difference between an investment bank and a brokerage?

re: A College Football Top 25

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/21/08 at 7:58 pm to
I've never seen him post there
We're "officially" capitalist?


Government providing welfare to big business isn't socialism, its fascism.



quote:



No we don't want a ton of companies to fail all at once, but all of these companies need to face some serious negative consequences so we don't repeat this mess again in 30 years or so.


As the proud owner of 34 shares of FNM I can say I experienced negative consequences.

I mean, what's the difference between a bailout and a government takeover as far as shareholders are concerned? The difference between losing 100% and 99.0% of the stocks value?

re: Which convertible would you buy?

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/21/08 at 6:35 pm to
Miata = woman car

seriously Zach.

For what? They've only played one game. And they had to struggle in it, to beat a team who themselves struggled to beat Mississippi state and whose only other accomplishment worth mentioning at all is Southern Miss.

re: A College Football Top 25

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/21/08 at 4:39 pm to
quote:


I think your name should be substituted with retard.



I usually substitute names with as much retard as possible. Moving too quickly could damage them.

A College Football Top 25

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/21/08 at 4:26 pm
Rank Team Rating SOS Rank SOS W L Pct
1 Southern Cal 1053 4 693 2 0 1.000
2 Utah 840 15 579 4 0 1.000
3 Wisconsin 837 22 565 3 0 1.000
4 Wake Forest 831 26 554 3 0 1.000
5 Alabama 824 50 507 4 0 1.000
6 Georgia 816 40 531 4 0 1.000
7 Boise St 812 42 525 3 0 1.000
8 Nebraska 808 49 508 3 0 1.000
9 Connecticut 775 55 491 4 0 1.000
10 Virginia Tech 750 7 619 3 1 0.750
11 Vanderbilt 747 53 494 4 0 1.000
12 Penn State 746 92 409 4 0 1.000
13 Brigham Young 744 89 422 4 0 1.000
14 Missouri 739 79 443 4 0 1.000
15 Oregon 737 14 581 3 1 0.750
16 Kentucky 726 94 400 3 0 1.000
17 Florida 725 105 381 3 0 1.000
18 UNLV 718 8 617 3 1 0.750
19 TCU 716 107 380 4 0 1.000
20 Northwestern 713 84 435 4 0 1.000
21 East Carolina 713 20 570 3 1 0.750
22 Georgia Tech 704 33 545 3 1 0.750
23 Ohio State 695 29 548 3 1 0.750
24 Texas 695 110 369 3 0 1.000
25 Iowa 692 63 472 3 1 0.750


LINK
Check out this Poll:

LINK


Then check out this poll of polls:

LINK

What if the person whom the shares are borrowed from has his account liquidated due to failing to meet his own margin requirements? Then what happens? Are you forced to close the short position?


Say someone with a margin account had shares of XYZ loaned out to someone else - and he wanted to sell them. He could just short the stock himself, right?

re: SO where did the money go?

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/20/08 at 2:10 am to
quote:

Who actually made money in this whole fricken' mess.


The lobbyists.

re: WHy the bailout???

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/20/08 at 2:07 am to
quote:


Does this skew the Risk/Reward tenet of the Free Market and capitalism in general? If the poorly managed companies get bailed out, that seems like a complete violation of the "Corporate Darwinism" that is essential to the success of the free market.



Apparently that isn't true. Without these bailouts - the free market would completely fail. Unless you consider economic oblivion to be "success".

But don't worry about the risk/reward tenet being lost on shareholders. The shareholders of all these bailed out companies are virtually getting zeroed out. The difference between a bailout and no bailout for shareholders is the difference between losing 99.9% of their share's value and 100%.

As proof of this - would you like to buy 34 shares of Fannie Mae for $20?
Oh, OK, I got confused I didn't know you mean a bid/ask spread I thought you meant an actual option spread.

Why is it that high?


The loaner stands to gain nothing - except that it allows him to use a margin account. I could be wrong, but I think when you get a margin account you are required to allow your shares to be borrowed for short selling. No margin account, and your shares don't get borrowed.
quote:

How to get short when shorting is illegal?
see my post about put spreads earlier in this thread. Put options are not working real well right now.



What do you mean when you say citi is $2 a spread?

Does this mean the put options are mispriced, and if that's true, wouldn't there be opportunity for risk free gains above treasury returns?
quote:

k, apparently inverse ETFs will work - they use something called "total return swaps" instead of shorting.



Yeah, except that if the company they bought the swaps from goes under, the swaps don't get paid.
quote:

We are a smart bunch of people here. Making shorting illegal is a set-up up for a crash, and I want to be short for a crash. So, we need to figure out how to make money from a crash that doesn't involve shorting stocks. I haven't thought about it yet, but I will on the way to work. This will be the official thread for ideas of how to make money on a crash without being able to short.


Here's a position that is sort of like a short position:

LONG 100 Shares XYZ
SHORT 1 XYZ CALL at a very low strike price
LONG 1 XYZ PUT at a very high strike price

The strike prices are chosen so the proceeds from the sale of the call pay for the put.

So, as an example, say you buy 100 sh XYZ at $5.00 a share, sell a call for XYZ at a strike of $3.00 and use the proceeds to buy a put for XYZ at $7.00 strike.

If the final price falls in between 3 and 7 bucks, both the call and the put are in the money. (7 - V) + (3 - V) + V - 5 = 5 - V
So if the final price falls in between 3 and 7 -for a dividendless stock, the result is the same as if you had shorted. For a stock that pays dividends - since you actually own the underlying, you'll be receiving them instead of paying them.

If the final price falls below 3, (7-V) + V - 5 = 2
Above 7 => (3-V) + V - 5 = -2

So unlike a true short position, your loss and gain are limited.



Its counterintuitive that you can mimick (though not precisely) a short stock using a position that has a long stock in it. The way I think of it though, is that the short call and the long put are both contracts, which if both are exercised, result in you selling the stock. So the two options represent 2 sales and the long position represents 1 purchase = 1 net sale.

Typical length of a short position ?

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/19/08 at 11:10 am
What is the typical length in time of a short position? This may be a naive analysis - but it seems to me you can't really do any long term damage to a stock by shorting it, because don't you have to close the position out fairly soon, like, in months, not years? This would mean your sale is matched by a buy order at some point a few months later - so the downward pressure on the price you exerted at one point must become an upward pressure. What are the margin requirements for shorting a stock?

What if the original owner of the stock wants to sell it? Can he demand you close the position?

re: Personal Rate of Return

Posted by ArkansasDon on 9/19/08 at 3:11 am to
quote:


My personal rate of return as of about 10 minutes ago was -28.46%

Dude relax. If you've just starting saving this is actually a good thing, as it means the money you'll be putting in over the next few years will be at a lower price.